Trapped Inside Her Brain, One Stroke Survivor Finds Life Again Through the STAR Program

On a Sunday night in 2017, Ninfa Flores was getting ready for the upcoming work week. She had an early start on Monday morning in the Texas Tech University Services Operations Division. Flores had spent 38 years in the department working up to her current position of assistant director and was proud of how far she’d come. On Monday morning, however, Flores never showed up for work.
 
She’d had a stroke Sunday night. Her entire left side was weakened, and her left hand (her dominant hand) was later broken. The rest of her was trapped inside her brain. Flores couldn’t remember things and couldn’t communicate her thoughts. Her identity that she’d worked so hard to create came crashing down. Doctors advised her to retire, and even though she wasn’t ready, she was forced to confront the fact that she could no longer handle the work responsibilities. She reluctantly gave up her job and her ability to interact with other people at the same time. The woman who had worked under five different chancellors at TTU had aphasia.
 
“I didn’t want to go out and talk to people — I no longer had the confidence and was scared to try,” Flores said.
 
Her home health therapist noticed her despair and told her about the Stroke & Aphasia Recovery (StAR) Program  offered at the TTUHSC School of Health Professions in the Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences.
 
“When I had my stroke, my sister got sick and ended up in the hospital, too. She was at UMC and I was at Covenant. My daddy said, ‘I didn’t raise my girls to be quitters,’” Flores said. “This gave me the motivation to try.”
 
She began attending the Tuesday morning StAR Program therapy sessions, where she met other stroke survivors – many just like her. “Todd in my group really motivated me to try because when I first came, he couldn’t write either, but then he started writing a full page! Now, I can write my initials,” Flores said proudly.
 
Flores also participated in the StAR Program Summer Arts Camp — a two-week program — and learned how to paint with her right hand. She loves the beach and painted scenes from South Padre Island and the Dominican Republic. The Texas Tech University Public Art Program invited StAR Program members to showcase their art in the Texas Tech University System building and Flores is excited to see her paintings displayed there — in a building she’s very familiar with since she used to supervise the cleaning of it.