At 8:24 a.m. on the morning of April 4th, 2024, Deborah Kobayakawa knew that something wasn’t quite right. “I was taking my vitamins, and no sooner had I put them in my mouth than I watched them tumble down my chest into the sink. I thought, ‘that’s really strange,’ and I looked into the mirror just as the left side of my face began to droop.” Deborah’s husband called 9-1-1 and within thirty minutes she was at The Queen’s Medical Center learning that she suffered a hemorrhagic stroke.
A day that started like any other quickly devolved into one of the scariest days of Deborah’s life. “It was horrifying,” Deborah said. “I prayed all the way [to the hospital] and just kept thinking, ‘what if I never see my kids or family again?’ I had just been with my eldest son and his children a few weeks earlier–I thought of holding them and had this feeling that I needed to make it.”
Deborah also had other family members on her mind as she went through tests and treatments to stabilize from her stroke. As the legal guardian of her youngest adult son with intellectual and developmental disabilities, she worried about how her injury would affect him. “We had everything in place for him,” she shared, “but this was the test, and there was this moment at the hospital where I realized I needed to let go for my own wellbeing and trust that the team and safety net we’d created for him in a situation like this would work.” With self-granted permission to focus on her own recovery, a few days later Deborah was stable and transferred to REHAB to begin her journey as a stroke survivor.
At REHAB, the goal was to rebuild Deborah’s physical and mental functions. “I started from a low place,” she said. “I couldn’t do anything on my own. I couldn’t use my left arm or hand and I had a 60% loss of peripheral vision in my left eye.” But it wasn’t just physical impairments that Deborah had to work through, it was mental challenges as well. I went from controlling everything in my life for my family, my son and my business to needing help from someone to do everything–that was the hardest part to tackle.”
But tackle it she did. “I got really good at ripping open sweetener packets one handed with my teeth for morning coffee–I wouldn’t let the aides help me,” she laughed. “I said ‘this is one thing I can do right now and I am going to do it!’” The determination that started with a sweetener packet would carry Deborah through the next weeks of intensive therapy where Team REHAB helped her relearn how to eat, swallow and use her muscles with assistance from electrical stimulation therapy devices. “The electrical stimulation therapy was big for me because it retaught me how to pair what I was seeing visually with my motor skills.”
Prior to her stroke, Deborah was a special education teacher. She also owned a consulting business that contracted with the Department of Education to run support groups for families with kids with special needs. “It was an interesting experience, having to personally work through challenges–like mental discomfort with changes in my routine–that I used to assist kids and their families with,” Deborah shared. “But because of my previous experience, I understand how important it is to have strong relationships and support systems in place.” Deborah recalls that it was her husband, sons, family, business partner and Team REHAB that she leaned on for support during her hardest days. “The level of care that REHAB provided me as an inpatient up on the fourth floor was amazing,” Deborah said. “All the CNAs and therapists, the people who helped me get ready to start the day and end the day, they treated me with the utmost care and dignity. This was the hardest thing I’ve had to do, but their kindness and compassion was huge in my recovery. They helped me get my life back.”
Today, Deborah is still incredibly active in the community, both at REHAB and in Hawaii. She stays connected with other stroke survivors at Stroke Support Group and is a regular at the REHAB STRONG Strength & Balance class. Beyond the hospital, Deborah is a self-appointed “grandma for hire” and volunteers with Special Olympics Hawaii where she is the chairperson for the Ohana Taskforce. She also serves on the governor-appointed board for the Hawaii State Council on Developmental Disabilities. “I love being with my son and I love being with his population. They’re the happiest people you’ll ever be with and he’s been a big part of my recovery.”
“This was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, but [Team REHAB’s] kindness and compassion was huge in my recovery. They helped me get my life back.”
When asked what she would say to other stroke survivors just starting their journey, she shared, “The biggest thing is that you have to believe in your own recovery and you have to believe that at some point it will happen–but you can’t get stuck on the timing. All progress is progress. As long as the trajectory is going the way you want it to be going, just let it go and keep practicing, keep working at it. It will happen.”