Love Stroke: Stroke Recovery and One Young Couple’S Journey

At thirty-six years old, Kelly Marsh was a successful businesswoman with roles at the Cincinnati Museum Center and, most recently, chief marketing officer at Thomas More College. Her husband, thirty-nine-year-old Brad Marsh, was a successful entrepreneur and businessman.

In Love Stroke, they tell their story after Kelly suffered a stroke August 30, 2009. This memoir narrates the firsthand, chronological views from both the survivor and the primary caregiver, including their life before, the day everything changed, and the first two years of recovery. Kelly and Brad share personal trial-and-error insights from their journey, and they challenge some conventional medical wisdom about what is possible. They also give advice to friends and family on the best way to support their loved one and each other, and they offer useful lessons and resources.

Practical and inspirational, the Marshes' story is intended to assist all traumatic brain injury survivors and caregivers, but particularly younger survivors and caregivers as they shape their own destinies in recovery.

This book, written by both a young stroke survivor and her husband/caregiver (the roles are not separate), is filled with some great advice for stroke survivors and their loved ones. Despite having taken a full history of Kelly's stroke, and seeing her in clinic on many occasions, I still did not know many parts of her story, and certainly did not know her inner thoughts and emotions. I was fascinated to hear the details from both perspectives, but especially from Kelly and in her own words.

Brett M. Kissela, MD, MS, Albert Barnes Voorheis professor and chair, Department of Neurology and Rehabilitation Medicine, University of Cincinnati