That fateful August morning in 2003 was going to be like any other day for Barbara Natali. The North Bergen resident was getting ready to resume her career as a successful real estate agent.
Tall, gorgeous and ambitious, Natali had earned the distinction of being the top-selling realtor at one of North Hudson’s most prestigious real estate firms, after spending 10 years as a fashion designer.
“She was like my protégé,” said Robert DeRuggiero, the president of DeRuggiero Realtors, Inc. of Union City, where Natali worked for over a decade. “We worked very close together. Barbara was enthusiastic, energetic and passionate about her work. She was on the verge of doing some great things, destined for great things.”
Natali was active, having competed in triathlons and swimming every day. She was frequently seen outside the Parker Imperial complex on Boulevard East, where she resided for the last 18 years, walking her golden retriever to nearby North Hudson Braddock Park.
At age 41, Natali was happy and healthy, showing no signs of illness whatsoever.
But that all changed in the blink of an eye one morning.
“I woke up that morning with a terrible headache,” Natali recalled. “I remember ringing the bell for the doorman, Jason, who was downstairs. I told him that I couldn’t breathe and to call an ambulance. That’s all I can remember. I thought I was going to die. My life changed forever at that point.”
A massive stroke
As it turned out, Natali was suffering a massive brain aneurysm and stroke. The result was Natali lying in a coma for approximately eight months.
Most patients do not recover from the extent of the aneurysm and stroke that Natali suffered. It is believed that if Natali did not call the doorman when she did, she would have died without getting proper treatment. The aneurysm itself causes death in 90 percent of similar cases.
When Natali finally came out of the coma, she was lying in a hospital bed at Kessler Rehabilitation Hospital in East Orange.
What was her first reaction?
“I was hungry,” Natali laughed.
However, the prospects did not look good. Doctors anticipated that Barbara would never recover, that she would more than likely remain in a vegetative state for the rest of her life.
“I had no idea what was going on,” Natali said. “It was so frustrating. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t speak. I wanted to scream. I wanted to say, ‘Why is this happening to me?’ I was hoping it was just a terrible nightmare and I would wake up and be fine.”
But that wasn’t the case. Natali was virtually paralyzed and lying in the fetal position for most of the day. She couldn’t communicate and needed care 24 hours a day.
Natali’s parents, Arnold and Pat, who have been divorced for a period of time, instantly became Barbara’s daily caregivers. They arranged to have a live-in caregiver, Elizabeth Cicakova, a native of Czechoslovakia, to remain with Barbara after release from the hospital, albeit with practically no hope of recovery.
Insurance had stopped paying for anything related to Barbara’s care, because insurance claim adjustors saw no improvement in Barbara’s condition.
Barbara’s angel
It was pure circumstance one day two years ago that Arnold Natali ran into Carrie Freed, a fellow resident at Parker Imperial. The two just happened to get in the same elevator together.
“We just randomly met,” said Freed, who is a registered occupational therapist and practitioner, specializing in brain injured victims and neuro-developmental treatment. “I didn’t know Barbara, even though we live in the same building. Our paths never crossed. I just started up a conversation with her father that day. Once I told him what I do, I then told him that maybe there was something I could do to help his daughter. I gave him my card and told him to call me.”
That was two years ago. Freed has been a major part of Natali’s life ever since.
“I believe it was fate,” Natali said. “I believe something brought Carrie to me, because she’s been my angel.”
When Freed first met Barbara, the therapist couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
“Barbara wasn’t with it,” Freed said. “She could open her eyes and smile, but she couldn’t do much else. I couldn’t believe we lived in the same building and we never met before. She couldn’t roll over on her own. She just moved her toes a little.”
But Freed was determined that something could be done to help Barbara, thanks to a method of healing that she specializes in, called the “Feldenkrais method.”
“I realized that Barbara was cognitively impaired,” Freed said. “I knew she couldn’t speak. Her life, as she knew it, was decimated. She had significant brain damage. She had to learn how to do all the little things all over again. We had to try to figure out how to teach the brain how to do all the little things she was so used to doing.”
The long road of rehab
The “Feldenkrais method” focuses on the relationship between movement and thought, increased mental awareness and the creativity that can accompany awareness. It is basically teaching the body to move with less effort and making daily life much easier.
It is a method developed by a Ukrainian judo master and inventor named Moshe Feldenkrais, who used his background in martial arts, especially judo, to discover ways for people to heal knee injuries, especially his own, channeling the healing through themselves.
People who have practiced the “Feldenkrais method” have improved their range of motion, flexibility and coordination, and graceful, efficient body movement more effortlessly.
While everyone can use the method – tennis star Martina Navratilova and famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma are two who swear by it – its biggest response is with patients suffering from central nervous system disorders, such as multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy and stroke victims.
“We were going to teach Barbara’s body to do things with the least amount of effort,” Freed said. “How to use the legs to balance yourself, how to improve balance and coordination. These are gentle movements with gentle instruction. The attention is directed to the area that is needed. You shouldn’t have to exert so much energy simply to roll over. There’s a method to it. Soon, the whole body is moving.”
Freed began working with Natali two years ago on a stretching table, working on different parts of her body and working on different positions that ease movement. The progress has been steady, bordering on the amazing.
“I used to work in hospitals and rehabilitation units and I’ve worked with patients that were as impaired as Barbara was,” Freed said. “But I never expected to see this kind of improvement. I never had anyone recover to this extent.”
A miraculous recovery
Because Barbara began to move, her parents were able to get medical clearance from the insurance company to begin weekly therapy again. There was more than a glimmer of hope. There was life.
“Barbara was able to be re-admitted to therapy by the insurance company,” Freed said. “So then I was able to give her regular therapy, cognitive therapy and occupational therapy. She was also able to go back to physical therapy (once a week at Kessler).”
Natali has come a long way since her near-fatal aneurysm and stroke. She can now walk and talk freely.
“She makes me feel lighter now,” Natali said. “I can walk now because of Carrie. I’m freer now because of Carrie. Carrie is my God-send. She’s a beautiful human being for helping me.”
It certainly is beyond imagination how the two hooked up.
“It really was all circumstance,” Freed said. “Imagine if I wasn’t in the elevator that day to meet Barbara’s father. But her family is the reason for her recovery. They’re really special people who always believed when other people didn’t.”
As for the recovery?
“It’s absolutely amazing,” Freed said. “There’s no other way to describe it. She’s just so motivated to get better and has taken that motivation to another level. She wants to have a purposeful life. She still can’t make perfect sense of why she’s here or what happened, but she’s thinking about becoming an art teacher or becoming a coach for others, telling her motivational story.”
“I’d love to do that,” Natali says with an effervescent smile. “Life is beautiful. Life goes on. I used to be in a fetal position all day. Now, I can walk. I can talk. Now, walking is the hardest thing in my life, but I’m doing it. It’s been a very tough road, but I’m getting there. I always felt I could get better. I always felt like I could walk again.”
A life of purpose
Although there are still signs of the brain damage caused by the aneurysm and stroke, Natali writes things down to remember. She also does the New York Times crossword puzzle daily to help her vocabulary.
“I finish it every day,” Natali says with pride.
She also has a significant other in her life, a young man named Lenny who is a stroke victim that she met while rehabilitating in Kessler.
“He had a bad stroke, but he’s getting better,” Natali said.
“Barbara had these goals in life, to become useful, to have a companion in her life,” Freed said. “Barbara continues to get better and better every day. Now, it’s just subtle stuff she does better. Maybe she’s moving her feet a little lighter. She’s better balanced and doesn’t fall as often as she did when she first started walking. But she’s the best patient I’ve ever had with the most dramatic improvement. From where she started and where she’s at now, she’s a poster child for recovery.”
Natali’s personality touched the people at Kessler so much that she was recently named Patient of the Year at the rehab facility.
“Before, everything I did was so hard,” Natali said. “Now, it’s a lot easier.”
Just last week, Natali was the lector at the Sunday mass at St. Joseph’s Church in North Bergen. She’s proud to say that she’s joined Weight Watchers and lost 32 pounds.
“She had the worst type of aneurysm and stroke and there was very little hope for recovery,” Freed said. “Now, look at her. But it’s going to be a lifelong recovery. She has to be willing to put in the work.”
Natali’s former boss is amazed.
“It truly is a miracle,” said DeRuggiero, who takes the time to see Natali for lunch as often as possible. “She was on a machine, in a coma, not given much hope. Just watching the progression, from the hospital bed to the wheelchair to where she’s walking. And she’s as sharp as a tack now. I still have a strong, personal connection with Barbara. Her family are just amazing people and very supportive. It’s so nice to see that she’s doing better. Her clients still call us and ask how she’s doing. I tell them that she’s pretty fabulous.”
Just seeing Barbara Natali’s smile tells you just how fabulous she really is.
“My career now is getting better,” Natali said. “I have to get better. I’m thinking of taking up tennis this year.”
A miracle indeed