EP 101
Nicole Salzano
Welcome fellow confidence crusaders, neuro nerds and success equalizers. This is your podcast, Real Confidence. I'm your host, Alyssa Dver, and I'll be sharing a bit of basic brain science, some surprising social secrets and a touch of tough love. Why? Because I believe confidence is everyone's fundamental right and choice. So let's get to it.
Alyssa Dver:
I was so fortunate. I spoke at a conference which I had been at many, many times. And I love this conference because I always meet somebody really special. And so I'm bringing you this year's absolutely most special person that I met, Nicole Salzano, is with me, and she's going to tell you the story she told me, which not so much, brought me to tears, but I just couldn't stop smiling forever, and I'm still smiling seeing her on the screen with me now. So Nicole, thank you for making the time to talk to us today.
Nicole Salzano:
Hi, yes, no, I am so happy to be here.
Alyssa Dver:
Well, here's the funny thing, there were several other people that were at this conference that told you and I that we had to meet, and so then when we finally did meet at the end of the day, you told me your story, and the conference was at the Bryant University Women's Summit. That's the actual conference, and you were a Bryant graduate, but would you share with our listeners what happened at Bryant in your last year or two that you were there.
Nicole Salzano:
Great, yes. So I was a Bryant alumni of class of 2018 at the last for me, because I was a swimmer, I was a captain of the women's swim team at the last swim meet of my career in February, I suffered a massive stroke after the morning session, I did a great swim In the morning I went back to rest before finals, when I took that nap, I never came back the same. I had a massive stroke, and that's where my story drastically turned.
Alyssa Dver:
And again, moral of the story, you're here talking to us with a big smile on your face. So for those of you who just went to lay down to kind of regain some energy for the next set of races and what like you woke up, when, how? What happened at that point?
Nicole Salzano:
So me and my roommate, Heather, we had lunch, then we went to our rooms, we went to bed, and all of a sudden, probably maybe 10 minutes go by, and I suddenly woke up, and I was tossing and turning trying to go back to sleep, and I figured I had to go to the bathroom, so I tried to get up, and I fell on the ground because my whole right side was completely numb, and the only thing that I could say was um, um. I couldn't say anything else. So my roommate went and called coach. Coach called the ambulance and they did a CT scan at the hospital, I had a blood clot in my brain.
Alyssa Dver:
No, no warning, no, was anyone in your family? Was there any indication that this could ever happen?
Nicole Salzano:
No, I was so, just so confused. I know that my grandpa had a TIA probably when I was 10, but I thought that that's what happens when you get older, and that you have these sort of illnesses as you get older.
Alyssa Dver:
Yeah, for those of you don't know, TIA, it's like a mini stroke, and most people have them. They don't even know what's happening. It comes and it goes. My dad had them too for the record. So now it's determined that this is what happened. You're in the hospital. Obviously, your family is there at that point, I imagine you, if it's not too much to ask, like, what was going through your head at that point, literally, when you're like, oh my god, I just had a stroke.
Nicole Salzano:
So I was on so many medications that I remember going to the hospital, and I remember being like, I remember going into the first CT scan, and that's it. I i Then my mom recalls a lot more stuff. I actually had a medicine called the TPA, otherwise known as like the clot buster, and that settled. The next morning, I had another CT scan for precaution. My brain was now bleeding, a side effect of the TPA. So I had to have an emergency craniotomy, so my left skull flap was taken from my head, and put it in my stomach for safekeeping for six weeks.
Alyssa Dver:
And oh, my God. And then what?
Nicole Salzano:
So the doctors and the surgeon said to my mom and dad that I would not be able to walk, talk or use my right arm again. And they were besides themselves. They saw me swimming an amazing swim. I went back to the hotel, and just like that, within an instant, everything changed.
Alyssa Dver:
I'm like speechless, and I'm standing looking at you, and of course, our podcast listeners don't have this benefit. You're this beautiful young woman, clearly muscular, fit, smiling, obviously talking, and I've seen you walk. So when you realized that this was going to be like whoever told you, and you were like, okay, when did it dawn on you that you were going to have this challenge, and did you keep saying to yourself, This can't be real, because it's it is an unreal scenario.
Nicole Salzano:
So honestly, I just, I just thought to myself, You know what? This is a challenge. I'm going to overcome this challenge because I do not like people telling me what I can and cannot do. It is infuriating to say the least. And I I said I would show them.
Alyssa Dver:
Boy you have so you went on a mission to overcome all that to prove them wrong. So what did that look like? What did that include? And tell us a little bit about some of the, shall we say, obstacles that got in the way.
Nicole Salzano:
So in the hospital. So I was in the hospital for 13 days, and then I went to an inpatient facility for the next two and a half months, and the talking was the biggest obstacle, because I could not say a word. The only my thinking was my family got me to say yes and no through hand movements, so a tight fist would mean no, and then a hands out would mean yes, and that was pretty much the only thing that that I could say, until my speech therapist, 10 days later, got me to sing, because singing is a part of the entire brain, but also the right brain, and the right brain was working, the left brain was not working. 1/3 of my of my brain is dead still.
Alyssa Dver:
Dead in the sense that it doesn't work. But are there functions that you have learned in different parts of your brain? Are there still parts of you that are not yet, yet? Notice I use that word yet functioning?
Nicole Salzano:
Yes. So for my brain, it's still 1/3 dead, which is like it will never come back, or at least that’s what they say scientists have so many new and new test studies, so I'm really excited to maybe try some of that, but it's called neuroplasticity, and so mybrain is 1/3 dead. But here's, here's a an analogy, the George Washington Bridge is closed forever. You have to find another way around and that's what I did. It took a long time. It's not like a broken bone or an injury where you have physical therapy for two to six weeks. It took a long time, because the brain has to go and do repetition after repetition after repetition to be like, oh, I think I know what that was.
Alyssa Dver:
So I think you remember I told you, neuroplasticity is my all time favorite word, and I've been thinking about it for about 10 years. So when I see somebody like yourself, that is the proof. It is just like, oh my God. Like, I just want to bottle you up and take you on my shoulder everywhere. But here's the thing, like, you're still very young, and you've got a whole life ahead of you, right? And I think, you know, I had my mother's cousin, so much older than I am, had a stroke, did all the neuro plastic things. And there is one fundamental thing about neuro plasticity that people you know. So yes, you can change your brain. Great, but the operative is can. And if you don't try, if you don't have a will to do it, it's not going to change. So where did your will to do this? Where did that come from? You said you woke up and you were like, I'm going to overcome this. A lot of people would be, I'm unlucky. I suck. I deserve this. Like they would just take and be like, well, obviously I'll never be who I was. You were like, oh, no way. So where does that will come from? Do you credit it to anyone or anything?
Nicole Salzano:
So I am a very stubborn, very independent person, but I really contribute that to being an athlete. Yeah, ask. I mean, athletes are are so equipped to do the hard work and to overcome a lot of things, and I decided that, okay, swimming is over for now. I'll take my sports stroke, which it was a survival stroke. Now it's more of a hobby, but and kind of spin it off as doing practice. Does that makes sense, yeah, it does.
Alyssa Dver:
You know, again the days that you were tired or it was hard, you know, athlete or not, who kicked your butt? Was it you or somebody else? Like the days that you woke up you're like, oh, this today, like you when you're in the pool with on a team, you have a coach, you have you have peers, right? You have other people that you're competing with in this sport, this you are by yourself, right? So, how did you like overcome that, you know, negativity or just in, you know, I don't want to do it.
Nicole Salzano:
So I have such a big support system. My family is humongous. My friends are so, so great. I have a boyfriend that is just so supportive and so encouraging. And I really, I really owe it a lot to my mom. My mom stayed home with me for the first year of having my stroke, and that changed the world. I would go from from therapies, speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, awkward therapy, and then when we would come home, we would nap, and then we would do it again and again and again and again, different exercises, and I owe a lot of my success to my mom.
Alyssa Dver:
Yeah, and I got the pleasure of meeting her too that day. She's a beautiful human as well. What? So, how long did it take to you got kind of back to a baseline that you now are working full time, right? You're, tell, tell everyone what you're doing. It's wonderful.
Nicole Salzano:
Um, so I am working the YMCA, and I'm an assistant coach of a swim team, and I always used to love helping out other groups when I would swim the younger kids, if someone, if some coach, needed a helping hand, I would always, I would always latch on and I love kids. I love to teach swimming, because I know swimming, and I know the ins and the outs, and I just, I'm so I'm so grateful that I can still teach that today.
Alyssa Dver:
That's awesome. So how long did it take? But you know when how many? What was the time frame your mom was home for a year with you, so the total time from stroke to to working again was what?
Nicole Salzano:
So, I started working in September of 2021, so, and I had my stroke In 2018 So, about three and a half years.
Alyssa Dver:
But I mean, for somebody who's 1819, 20 years old, that's a third of your life.
Nicole Salzano:
Oh, absolutely I, I was really the first, the first few years. I was focused on myself. I was focused on getting back and to base normal. I'm and I would just push and push and push. I did have a period of burnout of some sort because I was pushing so much and really didn't take the breaks that I should have took, but I was just so focused on getting back to what we think of normal.
Alyssa Dver:
Well, I guess that's a really great lesson in some ways to say. You know, as eager as you were to get back to that baseline, you may learn that we're all still human and subject to burnout, but what I'd like to do with your permission is take a little break, give our sponsors an opportunity say hello to everyone and then come back you and I found this amazing connection. Because, as you know, my son has a neurological condition, and I went through the journey with him, and you and I came out both ends with the same conclusion, and I'm on a podium all the time speaking about it, and so are you. So I want you to share the greatest AHA that you got out of this that you want everyone else to know. So we're going to be right back. Is that? All right? Yeah.
Nicole Salzano:
All right, great.
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Alyssa Dver:
Half just like saying to myself, I'm so lucky I met you. You're such a light in the world. And so, you know, you've gone through this what most people would consider, I don't even know if they use the word tragedy, because at the end of it, you've come out even brighter, I think, in a lot of ways. And it wasn't something that I think anyone would ever wish to come out brighter as a result, but you did, but you had one really big lesson besides from not burning out. And what was that?
Nicole Salzano:
Well, I just pushed through I know that doctors are very, very sorry. Aphasia.
Alyssa Dver:
No more to fill in there. To be honest with you, I know you're going to say, but they tried.
Nicole Salzano:
it really, yeah, intended, right? Yes, they're good intended, they're very smart. They're but they don't know you the person, the patient you if you have the ability to drive and to just focus on that goal, there's no stopping you, I firmly believe. And stroke, no stroke, if you put in the hard work, you will get somewhere, maybe not today, maybe not the first few weeks, but you will get somewhere.
Alyssa Dver:
And you never gave up on yourself. And I think that that for me was that moment I was like, you know, we're so lucky that you didn't, and most people would think of that almost maybe as selfish, as you said, I focused on myself. Well, yeah, thank God. Thank God, because the fact that you did that, and you were, you didn't give up on yourself, you're here now to help other people and do this great work with the kids and everything else you're doing. So from the rest of the world, but from me, thank you.
Nicole Salzano:
No, thank you.
Alyssa Dver:
I sorry that you had to go through that. I really am, because you're such an incredible human and I you know, there's, I'm sure people have said to you, well, you know, whether you're religious or not, you know you get what you can handle, right? I don't think that's the truth. I mean, you obviously could handle it. But please keep shining. Please keep sharing your wisdom, your positivity. Thank you for doing all you're doing, and thank you for being on the podcast today.
Nicole Salzano:
Well, thank you for having me.
Alyssa Dver:
You're a speaker, and you do a lot of podcasts, so people want to talk to you as well. What's the best way to reach you?
Nicole Salzano:
Um, you can, you can reach me at my email. [email protected] you can also friend me on Instagram, social or any social media platform, and I would love to, to have that honor.
Alyssa Dver:
So Nicole Salzano, thank you again.
Nicole Salzano:
Thank you.
Before we totally wrap up, I want to let you know that full transcripts and show notes for this and other real confidence episodes can be found on www.AmericanConfidenceIinstitute.com/podcast. I also want to remind you once again that the best way to get confidence is to give it to others, and you can do it just by liking and sharing this episode on your preferred podcast and social media channels. You can even give me some confidence by noting topics you'd like me to consider for the future. So for now, this is Alyssa Dver. Thank you for helping to bring more confidence to the world.
Master editing done by Ben Weinstein with original music performed and composed by Jeff Mitchell. Real Confidence is a production of American Confidence Institute, All Rights Reserved.
