Phil Alexander
Date of Stroke - July 14, 2002
I stroked about a year ago. I was 42 years old. I am speaking in the ViaVoice IBM computer program, because I cannot get the words to write them down, because now, the words are foreign. I have Aphasia from the stroke. I drove and flew to comedy clubs to perform in about 20 states in the United States of America. Clubs, theaters, television, and then movies with "Phil the Security Guard". John Cherry was the writer, producer, and director of the ERNEST movies. Thirteen movies total. (Jim Varney "Ernest", died about four years ago from cancer, too damn bad.) John gave the other Ernest scripts to me and I re-worked the scripts around Phil the Security Guard. He and I would fly to South Africa and film the Phil the Security Guard movies, but I had a stroke.
Well welI, on June 14, 2002, I had performed in Glendale Valley, about an hour from Los Angeles, for many men and women that had all kinds of drug abuse and crime problems. They were at a halfway house. I performed there as Phil the Security Guard. Speakers and microphone out in the meal room at 9:00pm. A crowd of about 150 men and women in rehab for drug and alcohol abuse problems, and it was the first time in a long time that they had laughed and laughed.
I had a two-hour ride home alone in my 1989 Celebrity Chevy, and I was a little hazy. I parked on the side street of Stanley and Hollywood Avenue, and I bumped into something and banged the bumper.
I was hazy climbing up the stairs to my apartment at Stanley Avenue. It was a studio apartment, I shared with another comic Richard Stockton. He was away on the road, doing stand-up comedy in two or three states. He also has his wife and two children at home. I was going to fly to the Bay area to visit my girlfriend Sarah the next morning.
Day in and day out, I always called Sarah about three or four times a day. When I got home that night, I couldn't find the number. I had her number in my heart, but I couldn't remember it. Calling and calling and calling Sarah, day in and day out, and now, I cannot recall the number and I cannot find the number. Weird.
I was tired, real tired, and I lay down on the bed. I was going the next morning on a plane to see my girl Sarah. I was hazy. I slept on and off for 17 hours from the stroke. The right side of my body was limp. I could not move it at all. I threw up a bunch of times, and I could not work the right arm and hand. I was just sitting on the floor. I couldn't get up. I tried and tried, but I could not get up. Eventually I called the number and Sarah was on the phone, but I couldn't talk. I couldn't say anything except "you can - you can". Sarah grabbed another phone and called 911 and got an ambulance to my apartment.
The ambulance was at the door, but it was locked. I could not get to the door for a long time because I could not move because of the limp leg. The ambulance men were calling from the door and they were going to break the door down. Eventually I stood up, but I could only stand on my left leg and not my right leg. I could open the door with my left hand and I was standing on my left leg, and I was naked except for a black sock on my left foot. I still could not speak except for a couple of words.
The ambulance men had a gurney and a white sheet, and the man was wrapping my body up and gurneyed me down the street and to the ambulance. Now I cannot write because the words are foreign. It is hard to say the words, and reading a book is hard. It's been about a year now, and I am getting better at saying the words and reading the book, but it is difficult. I can read about a page or two a day and that's it. But writing the words down is really really tough. So I can say the words into the computer software program and it writes the words in my PC.
I had a stroke, and my brain swelled and I was delirious. I was delirious for 48 hours because of the brain swelling and I could have died, but I did not.
Sarah was at my side morning, noon and night in the hospital. My sister Leila and her husband Joe were at the hospital too. Now, Sarah and I live in a one-bedroom house in Northern California. I am walking now. The right hand is rudimentary, and I talk about 30%. Other people talk about 100%.
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