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Stroke Victim Works For A Cure

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By LAURA FRAZIER

lfrazier@tampatrib.com

Published: January 14, 2009

BRANDON - A stroke five years ago at age 45 left Mary Ellen Gottlieb with facial paralysis, body weakness, random memory loss and haywire motor skills.

Convinced that only time might bring recovery, if any, she applied for disability benefits and hunkered down at home, where she passed the time "talking on the phone and surfing the Internet," she said.

Fast-forward to November, when Gottlieb - trolling for information about stroke recovery treatments - came across a series of YouTube videos that would alter the course of her life.

The clips chronicled the dramatic progress of brain-injury patients treated with hyperbaric oxygen therapy by physician Paul Harch of Louisiana, a leader in the field of hyperbaric medicine.

"They showed a young man who was strapped to a wheelchair all slumped over. He couldn't even track a flashlight with his eyes," she said.
Video segments shot months later, after dozens of daily treatments and intensive physical therapy, show the man walking, talking and playfully teasing his doctor.

"I thought, 'If this treatment can do that for someone so severely damaged, what could it do for me?' "

Gottlieb called Harch Hyperbaric Research Foundation in New Orleans, where studies are under way to document the effects of hyperbaric medicine for people suffering from stroke, brain trauma, cerebral palsy, autism, carbon monoxide poisoning and other neurological conditions.

Staff members at the research center noted Gottlieb's high level of after-stroke function, she said, and when they learned of her background in marketing, economics and nonprofit management, they asked her whether she would be interested in a job.

She wouldn't draw a salary, but she would receive the regenerative therapy free in exchange for coordinating patient travel, accommodations and in-kind donations for clinical trials. The trials are documenting the effectiveness of hyperbaric oxygen therapy on troops with brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Gottlieb packed her bags the week before Christmas to prepare for a move to New Orleans.

"I'm going to be like their house mom," she said. "I know what it's like to have a traumatic brain injury. I know how terrifying and demoralizing it is when you can't add or subtract and you keep falling down and bumping into things and forgetting things. My heart is with these people."

Reporter Laura Frazier can be reached at (813) 657-4523.

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