Ashton Doudelet was an energetic 23-year-old actor with a promising career ahead of him. Until one morning at the gym he was struck down by a rare condition that caused him to have a major stroke. He didnt die but hes not the same.
The following is an excerpt from Jane Gersters new Star Dispatches ebook Ashtons Second Act: How, post-stroke, an actor learned to play himself again. For the full story, get the ebook through the Stars weekly electronic book program Star Dispatches.
LISTEN: In a brand new feature for Star Dispatches, the Stars Scott Simmie reads the complete book. Click to hear or download the audio file.
The author, Jane Gerster, is a reporter with the Toronto Star covering breaking news and health. This is her first Star Dispatches ebook.
I found your sons phone, hes here at the gym. I think he might have been drinking.
At 10:30 on a Tuesday morning? Jay Doudelet doubted that very much, thinking it far more likely his 23-year-old, Ashton, had forgotten to eat or drink that morning something he did on occasion and passed out from dehydration.
But the caller, a janitor, was insistent that something was wrong. So Jay drove over. It took maybe 10 minutes. When he arrived, the ambulance was just pulling up.
Ashton was on the floor of the washroom. He was unable to speak and having a seizure, as he had been for the better part of an hour while gym-goers stepped around him, puzzling over whether he was drunk or really sick.
As Ashton was being loaded into the ambulance, Jay, a Toronto radio host who goes by the professional name Jay Michaels and the nickname Mad Dog, revised his earlier ideas about a forgotten breakfast or dehydration. In the back of the vehicle with his son, he processed only fragments of what the paramedics were saying. Inbound with a 23-year-old . . . uncommunicative . . . stroke . . .
That sounds weird, Jay thought, barely registering the fact that the ambulance bypassed the closest hospital, Toronto East General. He didnt know it, but the paramedics were following stroke protocol, rushing Ashton straight to St. Michaels Hospital, one of citys three stroke centres.
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After a stroke, young actor Ashton Doudelet learns to play himself again: ebook excerpt