(Nancy Brown/ HuffPost) — The story seems like fiction.
A 9-year-old boy in Latin America loses his mother to a stroke. His six older siblings raise him, providing the guidance and financial support to become the only member of their generation to attend college. Then he goes to medical school. Decades later, he’s known around the world as a physician, professor, scientist and writer focused on the disease that claimed his mother.
But Dr. José Biller’s tale is true.
And in the days leading up to Sunday – which is World Stroke Day – he’ll be doing what he does all year long: working to turn a spotlight on the second most common cause of death in the world and the No. 1 cause of adult disability.
About every 40 seconds, someone in the United States has a stroke. A stroke-related death occurs about every 4 minutes. Those stats are even more excruciating when you realize that 80 percent of strokes are preventable and that advancements in treatment have improved the odds of recovery.
“What’s your reason for preventing stroke?” is the theme of this year’s World Stroke Day. For Dr. Biller, the reasons are many, and they date back to the late 1950s.(…)