Rose’s husband, Randy, has Broca’s aphasia. After contemplating intensive aphasia therapy and weighing the costs against the benefits, they finally decide to attend a session!
What made you go and decide to find an intensive program, something different than you were already doing?
Well, when he had the stroke and they said the word ‘aphasia’, I said “What’s aphasia?”. I knew people that had strokes, and never heard the word before. And they kept saying “He has aphasia” and I kept saying “Okay but what is it? What are you telling me?”
And at the time, obviously, I’m in shock. So even though they’re telling me, it’s not sinking in. And my son immediately got on the computer and started research. There’s a lot of programs out there and we had several reasons why we chose this center. For us, what made the best decision was to come here. And he has enjoyed himself immensely. And he would really love to stay longer, but we are planning on trying to get back here.
You and I almost talked, on and off, for almost the better part of a year,I feel like.
We did. And last year, I, he didn’t want to commit with the money. And he kept playing around and then the time frame didn’t work. And then I had my mom at that time and was dealing with her health and then she ended up passing away. So things just didn’t work last year so I’m like “Okay, in December we’ve gotta make some decisions. Are you gonna do this?” And pretty much had to tell him “What are you saving money for? What’s that for? Retirement? Cuz hello! We’re here! This is retirement?” and I said, “What are you gonna do, give it to the kids? I don’t think so!”
If you wanna make the most of retirement, this is how we’re gonna do it!
This is it! And if we want to enjoy ourselves, we need to communicate. And to communicate, you need to be in an intensive program.
With us, I can deal with the physical. So what. The communication is the most important for us. And while we can communicate, I want more. I want him to get back to where he was. And while he won’t be 100%, we know that.
Well, to be honest, his writing skills, I kinda have to laugh, because Dr. Lori says “His writing is his greatest strength” and I said “Really. We didn’t think he could write”. We had no idea he could write. I mean, he could write ‘I love you’, ‘thank you’, very generic two or three word things. His name. But he’s always told me “I can’t write”. So I’ve just believed him that he couldn’t write. We had no idea that he could actually write. And the first week what he was writing, I was amazed. And I’m like “wow”. Nobody really touched on that with all the speech he’s had. Whether that’s us saying “We want to work on our speech” and maybe they heard speech and not writing. I don’t know. So definitely the writing has been amazing.
Would you recommend an intensive program who has all their factors line up and are able to do it?
Absolutely, absolutely. And I would recommend this facility. I haven’t been anywhere else but it’s just, it’s been amazing. This whole experience, everybody here. And just being in the sunshine. It’s been a great experience. He loves it.