LaPerche teacher returns to classroom after stroke recovery

SMITHFIELD - Thirty-seven-year-old Chris Davenport was grateful for his good health. "I've always taken care of myself," said Davenport, a fifth grade teacher at R.C. LaPerche Elementary School. "I was in good shape, I was careful of what I ate and I exercised regularly."But little did he know that without warning, adversity would come his way. "It hit me out of the blue. I never thought something like this could happen to someone my age."

Davenport awoke on Monday, April 6, to ready for another day of teaching, something he has a passion for. But he awoke with a wrenching headache. To make matters worse, he noticed that he was having trouble seeing. An hour later he was having trouble hearing and felt "as though my head was inside of a tin can. "Davenport wasn't aware of it at the moment, but he was displaying all the symptoms of a stroke. "I went to work anyway," said the educator. But his condition worsened and before the end of the school day, he returned home and all he wanted to do was sleep. Come Tuesday morning, Davenport noticed that his vision continued to worsen, his memory was deteriorating and had trouble speaking. "I tested myself by trying to recite the alphabet. But I couldn't get past "b." After a visit to his primary care physician, Davenport was immediately sent to Miriam Hospital where after undergoing an MRI, it was determined that he had indeed suffered a stroke.

Further diagnostic testing revealed that the most likely cause of his stroke was a heart defect, a condition he had never known about. After a three-day hospital stay, Davenport returned home. He would have to undergo corrective heart surgery and although he was fortunate not to suffer from any paralysis, he would have to work harder than he had ever worked before to regain his cognitive skills. Depression and anxiety, said Davenport, also became part of his daily life. "Here I am working as a teacher and I can't even read, write, or speak. That's what I do for a living. What do I do now?" Depression began to take its toll. "There were days when all I wanted to do was to crawl into a fetal position and pull the covers up over my head and spend the day in bed."

To overcome that, Davenport called upon something he had always been blessed with. "I've always had a positive attitude. I've always put that into play in my classroom, teaching my students the benefits of being positive." As hard as it was, he began to regain his cognitive skills by learning to read all over again. "I have young children, so I had plenty of children's books in the house. So I picked up a copy of "The Cat in the Hat" and began reading all over again. And I began reciting the alphabet so I could learn to talk again without slurring my words."

There were good days and bad days, but Davenport began to notice that he was making progress, which encouraged him to move forward. A vital part of his recovery came with the mail carrier each day. "From the very beginning I started to receive get-well and encouragement cards," said Davenport. "I got hundreds of them and I began to realize that a lot of people were pulling for me." Indeed, said Davenport, during the early part of his recovery, those cards became a life line for him. "I was so depressed with what happened to me that on many days all I did was to look forward to going to the mailbox, opening them up and reading them." His positive attitude, self-motivation and the support of family and friends began to bring light to his darkness. Less than 7 weeks after his stroke, Davenport felt he had made enough progress to return to his classroom. "I tried it, but it didn't work out." So he returned back home and over the summer continued working diligently to prepare himself to return to school by September. And he did.

Davenport knows that it is somewhat miraculous that he was, in less than six months, able to regain about 90 percent of his cognitive skills. Enough to return to his beloved classroom and do what he loves most - teaching. And he feels strongly about teaching others, especially the young, about the importance of being aware of the symptoms of a stroke. "If you're having a stroke, obviously you have to seek medical treatment immediately. In my situation, because I am so young, it never occurred to me that I was having one. If I had recognized it, I would have gone to the hospital immediately and maybe it would have been less damaging to me."

Davenport feels that he now better understands the difficulty children face of learning to read. "I had to learn to read all over again, and so now I can take what I have learned from that and make it part of my teaching." To learn about the warning signs of a stroke, visit the American Stroke Association's Web site at www.strokeassociation.org .