My BFF is Tony Colter.
Tony is currently a DJ on Sirius/XM
on BB King’s Bluesville and Watercolors (smooth/contemporary jazz). Check him out, he’s good. I’ve known him since eighth grade and
that my friends is a long time.
Tony is my brother but I really want to talk about his mother, Jeanette
Colter. She always was and always will be Mrs. Colter to me.
I was in New York then, hadn’t had my stroke yet, but more
important knew nothing, I stress nothing, about stroke. Wasn’t even on my radar. Her caregiver was
Tony’s sister, and my dear friend Vickie, who told me her mother’s story.
Mrs. Colter had a benign brain tumor and as a result of that
surgery, suffered a stroke. Vickie told me that afterwards she had problems
with aphasia, which is defined as an impairment of language, affecting the
production or comprehension of speech and the ability to read or write.
A lot
of words for ‘something is wrong.’
Mrs. Colter also suffered from occasional seizures and took a
drug which helped her with those seizures.
Take a deep breath because this story starts off not so good
but ends up a whole lot better.
While Mrs. Colter was going through rehab and relearning how
to write, to drive, to speak, I was busy with my career and starting a
family. She and my Mom were best
friends and I heard about her trials from might Mother as well as from Tony.
She
got better and better and then…I had my stroke.
By then I was no longer at the network and had moved to
Florida to be a news anchor at WKMG, the CBS affiliate here in Orlando. One day I flew home, to Maryland, to see
my friends and family and Tony.
I was Best Man at his
wedding to Doreen and am godfather to his daughter, Karley. After staying at his home, Tony drove me
to the airport and I had my massive stroke on the jet back to my home. Soon it
was rehabbing, and learning to walk and talk again. While doing that I
learned a bunch about stroke because, well, I had to.
Just about
everyone who has had one thinks they’re alone and wonders why it happened to
them. I know I did. You want the
world to stop because you have and let me tell you it doesn’t quite work that
way. Life marches on.
This is where Mrs. Colter came back into my life.
My television career seemed to be over, my days were filled
with rehab and the nights were the worst. In the dark it seemed like you had
way too much time to reflect, to think that maybe this was how the story was
going to end up.
Mrs. Colter, who also now lived in Florida, came to visit.
Mrs. Colter, who also now lived in Florida, came to visit.
The first thing I noticed was how you couldn’t tell that she
had even had a stroke. She looked great. Her husband, Colonel Colter, was there
as was Tony.
We had a grand old time, she laughed about how her handwriting
was awful, post stroke, and told me to keep doing what I was doing. She told me that having a stroke wasn’t
necessarily the end of the line.
I needed to hear that.
One of the
things I’ll never forget…we went into my den which has pictures on the wall
from the old days. Me with Ali, me with Jack Nicholson, me with President
Clinton (all Denise’s idea, I went there kicking and screaming lol) and I said
to Mrs. Colter, “I had a good life.” She said, “No, you HAVE a good life.”
It’s a story I tell to this day.
It’s a story I tell to this day.
I speak all the time around the country, I want people to
see that stroke affects everyone -gender, age, income, race, it doesn’t matter.
I want survivors to see my face,
the face of stroke. I also want people to know there IS life after stroke.
She taught me that.
Thank you Mrs.Colter.