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March 11, 1994 - Image 70

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Detroit Jewish News, 1994-03-11

Disclaimer: Computer generated plain text may have errors. Read more about this.

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Young adults say life-altering illnesses
bolstered their will to survive.

RUTH IJTTMANN STAFF WRITER

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1111 ark Goldberg keeps a box from his previous life. It's
filled with basketball trophies and photo albums. Prom
pictures. Memories.
"I used to play basketball 20 hours a week," says
Mr. Goldberg, 28, of Southfield. "It was the passion of
my life.
"The person I am now? It's like night and day."
At 23, Mr. Goldberg suffered three strokes in less than two months.
He jokes about it: "Look at your Guinness Book. It might be a record."
Three years ago, Southfield resident
Lori Horwitz underwent multiple surg-
eries and radiation therapy for ependy-
moma, a brain tumor she dubbed 'Oscar.'
"Mom and I called my tumor 'Oscar'
because neither of us knew one," the 30-
year-old Ms. Horwitz says. "I couldn't just
hate a blob. I had to hate something with
a name. And ependymoma is awfully bor-
ing."
Mr. Goldberg and Ms. Horwitz say
bouts with severe illness changed their
lives, forcing them to tap a source of
strength they didn't know they had.
Although their bodies seemed to be
waging a war against them, Mr. Gold-
berg and Ms. Horwitz resolved to nur-
ture strength of spirit and survive.
"I asked my mom once, 'Mom, why
me?' She said, 'Lori, why not?' And it's
true. There's no reason for these things,"
Ms. Horowitz says.
r. Goldberg wasn't supposed to
have a stroke. Strokes are for old
people, he thought. As an intra-
mural basketball captain, a Michigan
Mark Goldberg is back to work as a
State Spartan and sales wizard, Mr. Gold- sales representative.
berg was too hip for sickness.
He liked going to the bars. He liked dat-
ing. After college, he became a hot-shot salesman. The typical picture
in his photo album shows a tanned, dark-haired youth standing shirt-
less on a basketball court. That was Mark Goldberg.
Before the strokes.
"Now, I don't go to the bar as much. I don't hit on women. After the
strokes, I had a fear — even of everyday things like answering the phone
and brushing my teeth," he said.
Doctors attribute Mr. Goldberg's strokes to a disorder called lupus an-
ticoagulant, also known as anti-cardiolipin antibody syndrome.

M

"It is a syndrome that renders these people more
prone to developing blood clots," says Dr. Gor-
don Moss, an internist with Sinai Hospital and
the Detroit Medical Center. "If you establish that
a person has this syndrome, you can use conven-
tional blood-thinning medicine to prevent major
catastrophic episodes of thrombosis, or clotting,
that would lead to stroke or heart attack."
Mr. Goldberg's disorder was diagnosed after he
suffered the strokes, which left him with major
paralysis and slurred speech. Doctors said he
would never walk again.
The attacks affected his social life. A number of
friends distanced themselves.
"When this first happened, it was like someone
put my life in a blender. I was a really confused
person," Mr. Goldberg reflects.
"It was difficult because I had to establish
a new identity. I didn't know how to react to
people who were my friends and they didn't
know how to react to me."
For the first three months of recuperation, Mr.
Goldberg was confined to a wheelchair. That didn't
last long. He ditched the wheelchair for a cane,
then got rid of the cane to take up walking—
six miles a day.
"I thought, if the devil did this to put me in
my place, he screwed up. Something evil was
not going to come of this," Mr. Goldberg said.
"But if God wanted to strengthen a soul, he
succeeded."
Mr. Goldberg relied on an inner strength
— something he calls a "sink or swim" atti-
tude — to help him get back on his feet. Re-
cuperation, however, wasn't without
fluctuations.
The third year after his strokes, Mr. Gold-
berg fell into a deep depression. He was walk-
ina talking. But he didn't feel normal. He
didn't feel like the person he once was.
Then it dawned on him: He didn't want to
be that person, anyway.
"A lot of good things were happening to me
before the strokes, but I was on autopilot. I re-
ally had a superficial lifestyle," he says. "Why
was I going to the bar? Why was I hanging out

FIGHT page 74

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