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Back at Suson Park After Stroke
“If it wasn’t for them, I’d probably be in bed, not able to do anything.”
— Ron Neal
Watching Ron Neal take care of the animals at Suson Park in south St. Louis County, you’d never know the 58-year old has had two life threatening strokes.
Five years ago, he felt his entire left side go numb. He says, “The doctor told me that another 45 minutes and I wouldn’t have made it,” says Neal, who made a full recovery.
Then, last year, he was driving the park’s small utility tractor and ran right into a barn wall. “I couldn’t turn the wheel and I started to slur my words,” recalls Neal. Quick action by co-workers saved him again, but this time, Neal spent two months in the Acute Rehab Unit at St. Anthony’s.
“If it wasn’t for them, I’d probably be in bed, not able to do anything,” he says. Neal underwent intensive speech and physical therapy to learn how to talk and then walk, moving from a wheelchair to a walker and, finally, to a cane.
Now back at Suson Park, Neal walks without support and takes care of a park full of livestock. With milking demonstrations every day and feed to haul, Neal says life is too full to rest.
“You need patience and a sense of humor to get through it all, but this is my therapy now,” he says, pointing to all of “his” animals. “It keeps me busy. It keeps me happy.”
For information or a physician referral, please call 800-554-9550 or visit our online physician referral.
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