The magnificent journey of Emily Lester from last Christmas to today is one of new life and near death, happiness and horror, stubborn determination and, ultimately, triumph.
And like the very first Christmas story, it began with the birth of a son.
On Dec. 25, 2005, Ewan Robert Lester arrived at Lutheran Hospital in Wheat Ridge three weeks ahead of schedule. It was a year when, for the first time in half a century, Christmas and Hanukkah fell on the same day. An amazing coincidence, considering the baby’s mother, Emily Lester, is Jewish, and his father, Craig Lester, is Christian.
Things could not have been more perfect for the young couple. Normal pregnancy. Uneventful delivery.
The next day, they took their newborn son home to the Lakewood duplex they shared with Emily’s mother and stepfather.
Around 4 a.m. on Dec. 27, Emily awoke with a splintering headache.
Her husband wanted to call the doctor but she told him not to be silly. She took some Tylenol and went back to bed. Two hours later, when she tried to get out of bed, she fell to the floor, unable to move.
For reasons still not entirely understood, the 32-year-old woman in the best health of her life had suffered a catastrophic stroke. It is believed the stress of pregnancy and delivery, coupled with a previously undetected blood-clotting disorder, triggered the stroke.
Doctors worked for three hours to stop the swelling and bleeding in her brain. Eighty percent of people in her condition die. But from the very first moments, she was determined to live.
Three days after emergency surgery, she awoke to find her husband seated next to her hospital bed. “I just wanted her to know I would not leave her,” he remembers.
She was baffled by the sadness in the room. Why was everyone so upset? A doctor came in. “Where’s your left arm?
She patted all around the bed. She couldn’t feel it. She couldn’t feel anything at all on her left side. She had lost all sensation, control and movement of her left side as well as parts of her vision and speech.
Then she remembered something. “Where’s the baby?”
It is her son who has propelled her through rehabilitation. Her doctors say her recovery has been astounding.
“I know my daughter,” Emily’s mother says. “I know how strong she is. In the beginning Craig was in such despair, and I kept telling him she was going to get better.”
Within days of her stroke, Emily set her first goal: She wanted to hold her baby again.
Emily Suslak and Craig Lester met in 2000 on the Internet. He was six years older than her, living in England. She was in Lakewood. He was searching for a book he feared was out of print; she worked in a bookstore.
Before long they began trans-Atlantic phone calls. Once, after having a particularly bad first day on a new job, she sent him an e-mail about it. The next day, flowers appeared.
“She was so genuine, so nice,” Lester says of his cyberspace courtship. “I had no intention of getting married. The first time I visited, I was pretty sure she was the one.”
Emily was more hesitant, but missed him when he returned to England. He came back, and they married on July 19, 2002.
After his wife’s stroke, Lester’s family arrived from England to help take care of the newborn.
Lester was numb. How could he raise a child alone? What if his wife died? In early January, Emily was transferred to Craig Hospital, a rehabilitative facility in Englewood.
She soon began a rigorous physical therapy schedule. Her first breakthrough came in February, when she moved her left leg a few inches. On St. Patrick’s Day, she went home in a wheelchair. By summer, she was starting to take a few steps. She told her growing son: “You can’t walk until Mommy does.”
She has come to a physical and occupational therapy session at the Easter Seals Colorado offices. When the Lesters’ insurance coverage ran out a few months ago, she began coming here for weekly sessions at a reduced cost. Without the subsidized program, she would not be able to afford any treatment.
Recently, she picked a calendar date to abandon the wheelchair altogether. “February?” Emily suggested.
“I like January. It’s a good month to walk,” replied Jeff Prince, her physical therapist.
It is not known how much recovery Lester will ultimately accomplish. Her higher-level understanding of complicated issues and problem-solving are still not 100 percent.
She hopes someday to return to work. In the meantime, her husband has been working as much overtime as he can.
Another tension for the family is trying to negotiate exactly who is raising Ewan.
The baby spends three nights a week with Emily’s mother next door, and three nights a week with her father and his wife. Emily is still unable to completely care for him.
“I don’t feel so much like a Mommy,” she says wistfully. “I feel like his favorite toy.”
As her first year of motherhood comes to a close, she can mark the passage of this last year with goals set, met and new ones created.
Lately, she’s telling everyone she plans to walk her son to his first day of school.
“I tell myself if I am getting better every day,” she says, “then this is my best day so far.”
