At 60 years old, Jane Adams was always on the move."I swam on a swim team three days a week, and the other days, I walked with some friends from the neighborhood," she said. "I just loved to move and assumed that would always be true."
But eight years ago, while hiking with friends in Lake Tahoe, she had a sudden stroke that left her unable to move the left side of her body.
"This sort of surreal, almost dissociated state came over me, where I thought, wow, something is really wrong here," Jane told me on a recent episode of the Cionic podcast. "It occurred to me, when I couldn't move, that I was having a stroke, and almost immediately, my denial was kind of at war with the idea. And I thought 'I don't want to be having a stroke. I can't be having a stroke,' at the same time I'm having a stroke."
Jane was fortunate. Her wife, Crystal, who worked in construction and had safety training, recognized the signs immediately and performed a stroke assessment. When Jane failed, they called 911. A friend advocated forcefully for Jane to be airlifted to a stroke center rather than a local clinic without CAT scan equipment.
"I was put on a helicopter and flown out of there to Reno to a stroke center and got the treatment within an hour and a half of having the stroke," Jane said.
What happened next gave Jane a fleeting sense of hope. After receiving clot-dissolving medication in the emergency room, her symptoms briefly improved. Jane could move her arm and leg again.
"I thought 'wow, this is going to be a great story when I get back to work.' This is fabulous," she said. "And then it went away. Then my limbs just fell down onto the table, and I couldn't move my left side of my body anymore."
One Life Ends, A New Life Begins
Jane became hemiplegic on the left side of her body, unable to move her fingers, hand, arm, or lift her toes to walk. She also experienced left-side neglect, which can make it difficult for her to register what's happening on her left side. The physical challenges were immense, but the emotional journey proved equally intense.
"It was, frankly, a lot of despair. It was devastating," Jane said. "I fought against the idea of accepting it... I was constantly trying to titrate how much of the information I could take in, because it is a lot to absorb. Of course, your life just changed on one day. It's one life ended and a new life began."
Accepting and loving her new body, as well as overcoming stereotypes about disability, was a challenge, she said. But with professional help, and lots of love and kindness, she found her way through. Her daughter gave her a sticker that now sits on her computer: "Disability is not a dirty word."
"Like many people in this culture, I took for granted I would be able-bodied, and I just didn't know the first thing about being a disabled person, or that having a disability didn't mean that I was doomed to some unhappy life," she said.
The journey to acceptance wasn't linear. Jane remembers talking with her son, who told her he missed her old self — missed her staying up late cleaning the kitchen, getting up early for swim team, the movement in the house.
"I said, 'Well, it's a different life, but it's a good life,'" Jane recounted.
Gradually, Jane began finding small but meaningful moments of joy in her new reality — lying on the couch watching a baseball game with Crystal, or simply resting on her left side, which she finds comforting. The stroke also redirected her professionally. Once a reporter actively chasing breaking news, Jane has returned to a quieter passion she'd studied in graduate school: writing fiction.
"The stroke has led me in different directions and has done for me what I couldn't do for myself, which is give myself time to read and write," she said. "I used to be always a little bit late, but now I can't rush out the door, so I'm better at planning."
The Power of Community in Recovery
Two moments marked turning points in Jane's recovery. One came when she started physical therapy and connected with other stroke survivors.
"That sense of not being alone and seeing other people struggling... it was sobering that they were still struggling, because in my mind, I was hoping this thing would just resolve itself," she said.
A second moment came at the YMCA in Berkeley, where Jane swims in a warm pool used by people with various disabilities and chronic conditions.
"We have people with MS, with strokes, with heart attacks, rheumatoid arthritis, chronic pain," Jane said. "It was just lovely, because we have a fun time in the pool. We enjoy each other — that sense of community and caring and acceptance."
That experience shaped how Jane approaches relationships now. "I really seek out people with disabilities, to tell you the truth," she said. "It's such a commonality, and it's an understanding. It's a precious thing to me."
Family as Foundation
Jane's physical therapist, who has worked with stroke patients for 35 years, believes patients with strong support systems at home tend to do better in their recovery. Jane has been fortunate in this regard.
She said Crystal is patient and watchful. When their daughter Claire visits from New York, she walks with Jane around the block, matching her slower pace. Their son looks out for obstacles, which is especially helpful given Jane's left-side neglect.
One of Jane's early walking goals was inspired by a memory with Claire. Before the stroke, the two had walked dozens of blocks together in Manhattan, from the Whitney Museum up to the Upper East Side. After the stroke, Jane was determined to walk in New York again.
"I did go back and visit her in New York, and just walking from her apartment to restaurants on a warm summer night, I thought, 'well, this is great. I'm here in Manhattan, walking with my daughter,' and that was one of my goals," she said.
Finding the Right Tools and Therapies
Jane is clear about her movement-related goal: to be pain-free. She focuses on stretching and strengthening, and still works with her hand, practicing functional movements like holding and chopping carrots. Balance remains a challenge, as does bearing weight on her left side.
When her physical therapist read about the Cionic Neural Sleeve in the San Francisco Chronicle, she immediately thought of Jane.
"It has really transformed my walking," Jane said. "It fires up the different muscles in my left leg and gives it a boost so I can raise my toes. That's mostly my issue — keeping my toe up. It makes walking so much more pleasant."
Jane uses the Neural Sleeve consistently, both for the app's exercises and whenever she walks. She's even able to travel with it, recently planning a trip to a writing retreat in rural Ireland — a journey that would have seemed impossible in those early days after her stroke.
‘You Can Survive This’
When asked what inspires her to keep moving forward, Jane's answer returns to her children — wanting to be there for them, being inspired by their courage in facing life. But her perspective extends beyond her own family.
"I think for me, I feel much more connected to the greater suffering in humankind, our common humanity," she said. "I think, like many people, I had sort of an able-bodied arrogance, really, that I would always be fine. But now that I have a disability, I am more tuned into the burdens that everybody has."
For anyone earlier in their stroke recovery journey or struggling with mindset, Jane offers this: "You can survive this. I think I felt at first, I can't survive this. This is — I'm doomed, you know, just very depressed, negative thinking. But come to find out that I actually can survive it, and I did survive it."
She paused, then added: "Everybody gets dealt some blows in life, and it's been sobering just to look around and see how people are coping with them, but there's a lot going on out there that we don't always see, and a lot of courage and resilience."
