"I Had a Stroke. It Saved My Life."

A literal wake up call

Last Thursday, at 11:35 am, I was in a virtual meeting with a client. As I was talking, I looked down at my phone and noticed it said “missed call” from a number I recognized very well. It was a good friend I’ve known for almost 20 years.

“Wow, that’s unusual,” I thought. “I don’t often get calls from him out of the blue like this. I sure hope everything’s okay.”

I finished the meeting I was in and thought, “I should really call him back.” But I was really busy and had a lot of work to do.

“If it were that important, he would have left a voicemail, but he didn’t. I’m sure it’s not a big deal.” I decided to call him back tomorrow or the next day.

But something about the randomness of this unexpected call just didn’t seem right to me. It nagged at me, so about two hours later, I called him back just to see what was going on.

To my relief, everything seemed fine. He had some questions about some business-related things that were no big deal at all.

Our chat was very normal and lighthearted, the same as it always had been since I’d known him.

But after about five minutes of conversation, he all of a sudden blurted out: “Oh, by the way, did I tell you I had a stroke?”

I immediately burst out into laughter.

Realizing how awful that might’ve sounded, I apologized right away and told him I wasn’t laughing because what he said was funny but because it was so completely shocking and unexpected that I didn’t even know how to react. My body just acted for me.

“Umm, what? You had a… stroke? Huh? Are you joking?”

I was so completely confused about how he could drop something that big so casually into our conversation, like it was no big deal. The way he said it sounded like a simple afterthought: “Oh, one more thing before I let you go,” like you’d do if you wanted to invite someone to a pool party in a few weeks.

Long story short, the guy is in his early 50s. He drinks too much alcohol. He eats way too much fast food. He doesn’t work out enough. He watches too much TV. He doesn’t get enough sleep.

Rather, he DID all those things until he had a stroke a couple of months ago.

“I’ve made some major life changes since then,” he told me. “This was a huge wake-up call for me.”

“I’ve already lost 30 pounds. I don’t go to drive-throughs anymore. I don’t know if you can tell that my speech is a little bit slurred right now (I could tell but hadn’t said anything). I’m going to speech therapy.”

“Wow, I can’t believe you’re telling me all this right now,” I said. “It’s just so surreal. It seems like a joke or a prank. Because, I mean, you’re still here, and you’re telling me yourself.”

“Honestly, it was a miracle it happened the way it did,” he said.” “The doctors found out that my arteries were extremely blocked, and if I hadn’t had this minor stroke, I was on my way to an early grave with either a much bigger stroke or a heart attack.”

“So, are you saying,” I asked, “That in a weird way… this stroke actually saved your life?”

“Yeah. Oh, wow, what a weird way to think about it. I guess you’re right. It’s kind of funny that you and I are talking on the phone right now. Because that’s much better than the alternative, which, I guess, would be my wife calling you instead, saying, ‘My husband is dead.’”

“Hey man,” I told him, “No offense to your wife, but I am really, really glad I’m talking to you right now and not her.”

“Yeah. I’m very grateful to still be here. I mean, I’m a grandpa to six grandkids now. This whole thing has really gotten me asking: ‘What are you doing to yourself? You have no business playing games with your life like this. Lots of people are depending on you. It’s time to make some major changes and get your life in order.’”

What a crazy conversation.

What a crazy phone call.

What a crazy experience.

I still can’t get over it. It’s going to take time to process it all.

I’m sure there’s a lesson in there somewhere, but ultimately, it probably just boils down to how we all need to look at our lives and make the changes that we already know we need to make.

Because if we don’t, our bodies might force us to. And that might be a gentle nudge or a catastrophic event that could be fatal.

This phone call from out of the blue is making me re-examine my own life. What about you? Are you headed for disaster? Perhaps this is a good time to reassess before a stroke comes along and forces you to reconsider.

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