A Stroke of Luck: Fredericton man shares his story of survival in new book

Author Bruce Hughes chats about his new book and surviving a series of rare strokes.

After a series of rare strokes, doctors wondered if Bruce Hughes would ever walk or talk again.

Eight years later, the Fredericton musician is releasing a memoir called “A Stroke of Luck: Music, Medicine and a Miraculous Recovery” which details his stroke recovery journey in the hope of inspiring survivors and their families.

Hughes says he wasn’t feeling well the day of his stroke – May 31, 2017.

“I went to get up and I went down. I had the classic signs of the facial droop, the right arm, and after an ambulance ride to the hospital and three-and-a-half hours in the ER nobody could figure me out,” he told CTV Morning Live’s Crystal Garrett.

“Finally the lady doctor who became my neurologist said, ‘I’ve seen one of these in my life and if we don’t get him to Saint John for this new procedure that they’ve been working on,’ I was gonna die right there. And I woke up the next day paralyzed from the eyes down, scared out of my mind.”

It took Hughes about a year to walk and talk again. He says it took a combination of hard work to get to where he is now and a great medical team.

“Incredible doctors, nurses, therapists, you name it – everybody was there for me and it gave me the opportunity to just keep pushing forward and every day I was doing stuff they had never seen anyone do, so it motivated them and me,” he says.

Hughes also credits his dog Willow for helping save his life.

“The day of my strokes, I had a series of strokes, after the first one the paramedics spent half-an-hour with me and they said, ‘we think you should go get checked out we don’t know what’s happened but there’s something,‘” he says.

“So my wife was going to take her for a quick walk before we went to the hospital and they got 200 yards from the house, I was upstairs having my second series of stokes, and the dog started pulling her home. And as I was going unconscious I heard the door open and the dog came running up… she knew I was in trouble.”

Hughes, who is a former educator, now works as a patient experience advisor with Horizon Health.

“Every week I work with stroke survivors and their families in particular because there’s nobody for the families… my wife was traumatized by the whole thing, so I know what they’re going through quietly in the corner,” he says.

“I’ll offer service to them and just help guide them through the process and give them some hope that you can have a good recovery if you work hard. There’s no guarantees, but the only guarantee is that if you don’t work hard you’re probably not going to go home.”

Hughes says he never thought about writing a book until he had extra time on his hands during the pandemic.

“I thought if I’m ever going to have the opportunity it’s now, so 30 minutes a day is all I could do. My typing was almost dyslexic, it took my 18 months, and I turned it on and it took me another 18 months to edit, so three years in total before I even showed it to anybody. And then found a publisher that believed in me and here we are today,” he says.

Hughes says he’s been hearing feedback from nurses who have read his book and are impressed by how he was able to recall details of his stroke experiences.

“They’re amazed at what I’ve done and how I’ve helped the stroke community and made awareness for it,” he says.

“A Stroke of Luck: Music, Medicine and a Miraculous Recovery” is available for pre-order now.

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