Education sessions around the province offer practical advice to people who’ve had strokes — and their loved ones

Ray McDonald was able to move a toe, just a tiny bit, on his immobilized left side after he awoke from emergency surgery to relieve pressure on his brain. “You know what that means?” his doctor asked. “That means you’ll walk again.” Now, two years after a hemorrhagic stroke flooded the right side of this brain with blood, McDonald is not only walking, but also telling other stroke survivors to not lose faith in the wonders of human resilience. That’s despite the fact he can’t see out of the left side of each eye, a condition called hemianopsia, a type of vision impairment that’s not uncommon after a stroke. So he takes a white cane with him for walks, particularly in crowded situations when he’s likely to bump into people and they’re unlikely to understand because he looks perfectly normal.