STROKE OF MIRACLES

By: C. Saphir

Courtesy of Mishpacha Magazine

When I met my future husband, Chanoch, I wasn’t very serious about getting married. I was young, and he was only the second boy I dated. He was young, too; I was his first girl. But my mother said, “Rivka, if you meet a nice boy, you don’t drop him.”

Chanoch had a sparkling personality and sterling middos, and was deeply committed to Torah, maintaining regular learning sedorim alongside his job in computers. We got married. Life was pretty simple back then.

The next frontier in life – having children – was more complicated. It took four years, and considerable medical intervention, before our bechor, Moishy, was born. Looking back, I think those years of infertility prepared me for the next big nesayon, because they taught me clearly that Hashem is in charge, and that He loves me and listens to me and does miracles for me. By the time I had Moishy, I knew with certainty that it wasn’t this doctor, or that procedure, that allowed me to have a beautiful, healthy baby – it was Hashem alone.

When Moishy was six months old, Chanoch’s vision started to become blurry in one eye, so he visited an optometrist. The optometrist didn’t like what he saw. He sent Chanoch to see a specialist, who discovered a benign tumor growing on the optic nerve. Further testing showed that Chanoch had a second benign tumor in his head, plus a bulge in a blood vessel (an aneurysm) that was liable to rupture at any time.

Chanoch underwent surgery on a Monday to remove the tumors and strengthen the wall of the bulging blood vessel. He was discharged on Wednesday, in excellent condition. We went from the hospital to my in-law’s house, where we were supposed to remain for two weeks so that Chanoch could take it easy and recover.

Two weeks later, I was driving to work, when I got a phone call from my mother-in-law. “Rivka, turn around and drive straight to the hospital,” she told me. “Chanoch started throwing up, and he collapsed. We called Hatzolah, and he’s on his way to the hospital.”

Oh, bother, I thought. Now I’m going to have to take yet another day off work. I had no idea, then, how serious Chanoch’s condition was.

The doctors performed emergency brain surgery on Chanoch, but it was too late: Chanoch had suffered a massive stroke. What caused the stroke, no one knew.

Chanoch, age 26, was attached to a respirator and to every other possible tube and machine. He was in such a deep coma that his pupils did not even dilate when a light was shone directly into them. “Pupil dilation is a primitive reflex,” the doctors told us soberly. “If he lost that reflex, it’s a sign of severe brain damage.”

Still, I didn’t internalize the severity of the situation. The doctors were basically telling us that Chanoch was a goner, but I naively assumed that this was a minor setback

For four weeks, Chanoch lay in the hospital, motionless. At that point, the hospital informed us there was nothing more they could do for him, and they told us to take him somewhere else. Where to take him, we had no idea. My in-laws and I were in way over our heads; other than playing music for Chanoch and talking to him, we were clueless about what to do for him.

The medical staff had all but given up on him, but I was sure he’d get better. Maybe I was optimistic, or maybe I was in denial. A few times, I had a nightmarish vision of myself, several years down the line, taking Moishy to visit the comatose father he didn’t know, but mostly, I operated under the assumption that this was a temporary medical issue, a crisis that would soon be over. No one even mentioned the term TBI (traumatic brain injury) to us until much later.

Luckily, we found a rehab center that was willing to take Chanoch, even though he was still in a deep coma. The therapists at the rehab center would strap him to a board and place him in an upright position so that he’d get used to putting weight on his feet, and they’d send electrical stimulation through his muscles. Unlike the hospital staff, the people at the rehab center treated him as though they believed he was going to get better. That belief alone was a tremendous kindness, made all the more remarkable by the fact that it took weeks of therapy before Chanoch made any discernible progress.

One day, a few weeks after Chanoch was admitted to the rehab center, a therapist gave him a ball, and he threw it across the room. Another day, someone took hold of his hand, and he started to thumb wrestle. When he was handed a phone, he instinctively put it to his ear. He still couldn’t communicate, and he had no idea what he was doing, but his brain clearly had some function left.

We celebrated Moishy’s first birthday in the rehab center. By that point, the staff at the rehab center had begun sitting Chanoch up in a wheelchair, to get him out of bed and accustom him to sitting.

Two months after the stroke, he was weaned off the respirator. A few weeks later, he started to utter sounds. He called me “Icka.” He said “Ee-ma” when his mother came.

My in-laws and I developed a rotation, in which we took turns being with Chanoch, and I was able to work three days a week. One day, when I was at the rehab center, Chanoch called my name and started pointing to his head animatedly. I understood that he wanted his tefillin, so I hurried to bring them. I had no idea how to lay tefillin, but he took the straps from me and expertly wrapped them around his arm. His tallis bag was beside him on the bed, and to my amazement, he reached into it and removed his siddur.

He held out the siddur to me, as thought he was asking me to help him open it to the right age. I opened the siddur to Ashrei, but he shook his head no. I opened to Aleinu, and again he shook his head no. I opened to the tefillah of hanachas tefillin, and his lips started to move.

Tears rolled down my face. “You could read!” I exclaimed. Chanoch looked at me as if I was nutty. He didn’t remember anything that had happened to him in the past three months, and he couldn’t understand why I was getting all worked up about him putting on tefillin and davening.

That day was a huge breakthrough, but there was still plenty of hard work ahead. Chanoch had to relearn every single thing – how to walk, how to speak, how to hold his head up. As a result of his stroke, he had become blind in one eye, and had lost much of his auditory processing capability. Hearing, attention, memory – everything was effected.

It seemed that with each bit of progress Chanoch made, the extent of his injuries became even more apparent. His muscles were not just weak, they were damaged, so even after he learned to walk, with assistance, he still became very fatigued after walking a short distance. His facial muscles were damaged as well, which made it difficult for him to articulate sounds clearly. His recovery was nothing short of miraculous, but ironically, it was only during the recovery process that I realized how badly he was injured. That too, was a kindness from Hashem, because I don’t know how I would have coped during that bleak initial period after the stroke if I had understood how dismal his prognosis was.

My in-laws and I were confused and overwhelmed. We didn’t know what we could expect from Chanoch, and we weren’t sure whether to push him or leave him be. Initially, we urged him to become more independent, until it became apparent that there were some things he shouldn’t be doing on his own, like driving or lifting.

BINA, a Jewish organization that helps victims of stroke and brain injury, connected us with a leading neuropsychologist named Dr. Yitzchak Lehrer, who educated us about brain injuries. “Brain function is like a pyramid,” he explained. “The most basic level is attention – being able to focus on the world around you. The next level is sustained attention – being able to focus on the world around you for a length of time. Then come several types of memory skills, followed by several types of reasoning skills. At the top of the pyramid is the skill of self-awareness – to truly understand what has happened to you and to know what you can and cannot do anymore.” Chanoch had to work on each level, through extensive therapy and specialized computer programs.

It was Dr. Lehrer who gave me what was by far the most valuable bit of reassurance I received. “The most important thing a father can do for his kids is not play basketball with them, or even teach them Gemara,” he told me. “The most important thing a father can do for his children is to teach them, by example, how to cope with life’s difficulties. And that’s something your husband will be able to do every day.”

One of the most frustrating things for me was that Chanoch did not understand his condition and the extent of his impairment. Before his stroke, he had planned to make a career switch from computers to social work, which was more in line with his personality and innate strengths. After he regained his ability to speak, he kept talking about finishing graduate school and becoming a social worker. You can’t even carry on a phone conversation! I’d think to myself. How do you think you’re going to manage in graduate school?

Understanding that this disconnect with reality was also a result of his injury made it a lot easier for me to cope, and helps me cope to this day. If Chanoch asks me the same thing ten times in the span of an hour, or forgets our plans for the day, I remind myself that he isn’t being annoying; he has memory problems.

Chanoch has enough self-awareness to realize that he’s not the active, vibrant person he used to be, and it saddens him. The one comfort he has is his Torah learning. “I don’t remember much of what I learn,” he says wistfully, “but with Torah, what counts is the effort. It doesn’t matter if I don’t understand, or if I can’t remember.”

Chanoch is no longer able to work, but he has redoubled his commitment to Torah learning,. He can’t learn with a chavrusa, because is speech is hard to understand. But he attends shiurim regularly, and has a full schedule of daily learning sedorim – Chumash, Mishnayos, Gemara.

Another mitzvah he is doing is volunteering for BINA: He travels to homes of people who have had strokes to give them chizuk. He also gets up for minyan every day, and walks to shul with his cane or walker, rain or shine. Watching him struggle to do the things that come so naturally to most people his age – he’s now 37 – I can’t help but feel awed.

Still, I feel sad sometimes. The husband I have now is not the same person I married, back when I was young and too dumb to appreciate him, and I have to maneuver my way around his limitations and try to remain encouraging and upbeat. I remind myself that really, every wife has to do the same thing – learn to accept her husband’s limitations and be happy with the spouse Hashem has given her instead of being frustrated by what he can’t or doesn’t do.

In a way, it’s easier for me than for other wives, because I don’t have the expectations that one would have of a regular husband. If I would expect Chanoch to be supporting the family, I’d be upset that I have to be the sole breadwinner. But since I don’t expect that of him, the fact that he doesn’t work doesn’t cause me disappointment or resentment. I guess it’s not our reality that creates our emotions – it’s our expectations that do. It also helps a lot that Chanoch thanks me every day for going to work, for making supper, and for many other things – and he really means it each time.

Fortunately for me, the one thing Chanoch’s injury didn’t affect was his personality. He still has the same great sense of humor, the same big heart, and the same exceptional middos. Even when things are hard for him, he remains patient and calm and loving; I don’t think I’ve ever heard him raise his voice.

Two years after Chanoch’s stroke, when Moishy was two and a half, we experienced another miracle, when our twin boys, Betzalel and Yehuda, were born.

With time, we’ve settled into a routine. Chanoch goes to learn, runs errands, and does dishes. I drive, work, cook, and do homework with the kids.

To me, the biggest miracle of all is the fact that Chanoch and I are raising a normal, healthy, well-adjusted family. His limitations don’t prevent him from being a great father – in fact, his limitations make him an even better father.

One day, five-year-old Betzalel complained to me that he doesn’t like walking outside with Chanoch. “Why does Abba walk so slow?” he asked in frustration.

I thought of what Dr. Lehrer had told me about the most important thing a father can do for his kids, and I refused to feel sorry for my son. “Do you think Abba wants to walk so slow?” I responded. “Do you see him complaining?”

When Chanoch woke up from his coma, he related that he had seen a vision of angles in Heaven, with human faces, wearing tefillin. (Perhaps that was the reason for the urgency he felt to put on tefillin that day when I was with him in the rehab center.) The vision was so vivid, that to him it was proof that the Next World exists, and that Torah is pure emes. A rav reinforced this conviction by telling him that there’s a midrash that says that malachim wear tefillin.

Ever since then, Chanoch has been determined to share this conviction with the rest of the world; he’s hoping to write a book one day about his experience and publicize the miracles Hashem did for him. In the meantime, he started a campaign to help people improve their performance of the mitzvah of tefillin.

Despite his trouble with planning and executive functions, he arranged the manufacture of thousands of leather-wrapped tefillin mirrors, working with contacts in China throughout the process. Despite his limited mobility, he goes around from shul to shul distributing these mirrors and teaching people how to position their tefillin correctly. Despite his limited funds, he is determined to continue this campaign and get sponsors to fund the publication of his book.

He’s still talking about becoming a social worker. And maybe he will. If there’s anything our experience has taught me, it’s that miracles do happen.