MY NAME IS WINSTON JEROME LINDSLEY
On April 29, 2002 I had an aneurysm on my aorta. I barely survived the surgery required to fix the tear in my heart. As a result of the surgery and bleeding, I suffered a stroke which affected the left side of my brain leaving me with a condition known as aphasia. They believe the cause of my aneurysm was my use of EPHEDRA which I had been taking for approximately five years. A headline on Ephedra read "April 12 Supplement Linked To 155 Deaths. The move marks the government's first ban on a dietary supplement. A 1994 law allows the FDA to a dietary supplement from the market only if it presents a significant or unreasonable risk of illness or injury under ordinary conditions of use."
APHASIA IS A COMMUNICATION DISABILITY caused by damage to the language centers of the brain, as the result of a stroke. It is not a loss of intelligence. Depending on where and to what extent the brain is injured, each person with aphasia has a unique set of language disabilities. While intelligence remains intact, abilities to speak, understand spoken language, read or write may be reduced or eliminated. There are many types of aphasia, but two general categories: nonfluent and fluent. Someone with nonfluent (expressive or Broca's) aphasia speak in a hesitant, telegraphic style using short phrases and effort in speaking. They usually can understand speech more easily than they can speak. Someone with fluent (receptive or Wernicke's) aphasia speaks at a normal rate, but may have difficulty producing their intended words. They tend to "talk around" a point, substitute a similar word or use nonsense words. They may also have difficulty understanding speech. Persons who have very severe difficulty speaking, reading writing and understanding are said to have global aphasia
On April 29, 2002 I had an aneurysm on my aorta which caused internal bleeding. I was flown from our local hospital (Fair Oaks) to another bigger (INOVA Fairfax) to undergo immediate surgery to repair the tear in my heart. (Although he does not remember this, he seems to be amazed at the thought of taking a helicopter ride!) The surgery took about 3 hours but I was in the Operating Room for 7 and half hours due to the bleeding that followed; only one in ten people survive this procedure. A few days after my surgery when I woke up, they discovered that I had had a stroke (this often happens as a result of the surgery I had). As a result of the stroke, which affected the left side of my brain, I was totally paralyzed on the right side of my body but have now regained most of my strength back. My ability to speak has been impacted. I can understand and think as I did normally but the words do not come out correctly - this is improving but it is going to take quite a bit of time.
We saw both his cardiologist and cardio-vascular surgeon this week. Oh, Dr. Spiers (the cardio-vascular dr. we saw) did Winston's original surgery and he said "Winston is doing remarkedely well when you consider all he went through, both physically and speech wise" - this was a great boost to me. He explained the heart has three layers, say a t-shirt, shirt and coat -- the t-shirt being the most critical. Winston's aneurysm was between the shirt and coat layer - if it had have been at the t-shirt layer he would be dead not that he is still not lucky to be alive! They had to lower Winston's body temp to 18 (yes 18 !) and turn off all the pumps to complete the surgery. He also told me that when Winston arrived for surgery they had reported him to be having a stroke.