Yarmouth man regains quality of life at HCHC

Allan Deen of Yarmouth knows from personal experience how crucial it is to receive immediate care when suffering a stroke. He also knows that the steps taken following such a significant health event are vital to future quality of life.

After suffering some smaller strokes, Allan was flown from Southeast Iowa Regional Medical Center, West Burlington, to the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics. It was there that he had a major stroke while in an MRI machine. After having emergency surgery, he awoke to find that he lost his voice, speech and movement on the entire left side of his body. He later learned that he had two clots, his carotid artery was 96% blocked, and the other side 74% blocked, all of which caused him to have a total of five strokes.

“I was fortunate I was already at the hospital when I had my major stroke and that they were able to do surgery immediately. I think that was one reason I recovered so quickly,” he explained. But another major reason he attributes to his recovery is the therapy he received.

His inpatient rehabilitation was at Southeast Iowa Regional Medical Center in West Burlington. When he discovered it was going to take a couple of weeks before he could start outpatient rehabilitation, he found that he could have all of his therapy start immediately at Henry County Health Center.

“I needed to work on everything, which even included things like training my speech, my memory, and my eyesight to get peripheral vision back. Remembering the names of people I work with is slowly coming back. I really have to train myself to do certain things; the knowledge doesn’t go away, you just have to work on retrieving it,” Allan said.

His outpatient therapy at HCHC began with physical, occupational and speech therapy three times a week with work at home. He finished speech and physical therapy, leaving him with occupational therapy three times a week to improve grip, steadiness and upper body strength. Allan was pleased that HCHC Rehabilitation Services was able to deliver all of the outpatient therapy he needed for a full recovery.

“All of the therapists were very knowledgeable in what I needed for my recovery. This was great because I had no idea what I needed. They were very helpful and let me push myself as hard as I wanted. They could tell when I wasn’t up to doing what I’d normally do, and would advise when I needed to take it easy and not overexert. They listened and treated me like an individual,” he explained. “I also liked the convenience of the closeness of the service and that I didn’t have to travel far. I would definitely recommend HCHC Rehab Services to others.”