May 2026 Newsletter

by Marcella Prokop

According to the Centers for Disease Control, stroke is the No. 1 cause of long-term disability in the United States, and nearly a quarter of the people who experience stroke are of working age, or under age 65.

In my 20s, I never thought about stroke and disability or what would happen to me if I couldn’t work.

But on December 26, 2004, all of that changed when I experience a hemorrhagic stroke caused by a ruptured Arteriovenous malformation (AVM).  I had just completed my bachelor’s degree in journalism through Augustana University and an internship at NBC News in Washington, D.C. I was ready to start my life as a young professional and put all the skills I’d been developing since high school to use.

On that winter day, I was home for Christmas and ice fishing with my parents when I developed a bad headache, lost my sense of depth perception and my ability to think clearly.  My parents got me to the nearest hospital—in rural Nebraska, where I grew up, that meant a 30-bed facility with X-ray capabilities and nothing more.

When the massive bleed was discovered, I was airlifted to Casper Wyoming for brain surgery. I spent a month in the hospital afterward for physical, speech and occupational therapy, learning how to walk, shower and care for myself again.

I was blind in the lower-left quadrant of each eye and numb on the left side, so I spent a great deal of time learning to navigate the world with these new challenges during and after this month of intense therapy.

I also had to relearn how to type, how to focus my attention so that I could ask a question, anticipate a response, write down that response and understand what was being communicated to me. Returning to work in some capacity was important to me, but reading a calendar, using a planner and remembering how to do new tasks was hard.
When I left, I was functioning at a fraction of where I’d been the month before, working in the consumer news unit at NBC.

Today, almost 22 years later, I credit that time in therapy as the resource that helped me retrain my brain and harness the power of executive function again. It also helped me learn how to navigate my visual impairment, what I think of as the main lasting impact of the stroke.  Yet according to the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, 40% of stroke survivors don’t receive occupational therapy. Sixty percent don’t receive speech therapy.

My time in therapy taught me how to navigate everyday activities, but it also taught me how important it was to advocate for myself when I returned to work.  Over the years, I’ve asked for special keyboards, extendable stands and larger monitors and ergonomic footrests—all to help accommodate desk work that is more challenging because of the way I tip my head to see my computer screen for hours every day.  I’ve never had an employer balk at me for requesting these things; in some cases what I’ve found to be more challenging is helping employers or co-workers understand the hidden aspects of disability: That I “look fine” but am fatigued or my head and neck hurt because of the physical accommodations I make to see around me. Over time, I’ve learned that communicating these things early on has been the best strategy for me.

In my current work as the director of Access and Workforce Opportunity at Southeast Technical College, I’ m fortunate to work in a position and place that supports my needs and recognizes that accommodations and adjustments for me, for other employees or for students, are crucial steps in supporting workforce access and opportunity for everyone.