Bryan Shantz had 50 seconds to snap the grizzly bear photograph he had waited 50 years to get.
The stroke survivor who’s partially paralyzed on his left side, leaned out of a car window and took the perfect digital shot of a mother bear and her three young ones while the bruins were lumbering beside a road in Kananaskis in 2012.
He even got the photo published in an American periodical — which fulfilled his long-held dream.
“When I was 20 years old, I wanted to become a nature photographer,” good enough to get a bear photo published, Shantz recalled.
But life didn’t go exactly to plan: Shantz became a science and photography teacher instead. And 19 years ago, at the age of 55, he was working in his garden when he felt an excruciating pain in his head.
When paramedics later asked him to rate it on a scale, where ‘10’ was the worst pain he’d ever felt, Shantz told them, “on that basis, it’s more like 100.”
He’d a hemorrhagic stroke, in which a blood vessel in his head burst. He spent three months at Edmonton’s Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital, another year as a rehab outpatient, and “the next 20 years getting my life back.”
A large part of the latter involved keeping his photography passion going — something that became easier with digital cameras because he doesn’t have to load film with one hand.
Shantz, now 74, has also been a major organizer, over the last decade, of the annual Walk, Talk and Roll fundraisers in support of the Heart and Stroke Foundation.
At the 10th annual event, which attracted about 100 participants on Tuesday to CrossRoads Church, west of Red Deer, he passed on some advice he hopes will help others.
Firstly, get your blood pressure checked — and if it’s too high, take the medication you are prescribed, said Shantz.
As for stroke survivors, he believes it’s important to focus on “the things that are significant in our lives — and do them — instead of just sitting around…”
Catherine Cepuch, a recreational therapist who helped at the Walk, Talk and Roll benefit, said the annual benefit has raised about $40,000 for the foundation’s research, support programs, and public awareness over the first nine years.
She hopes this year’s amount will bring the total closer to $50,000 — and that more volunteers come will forward to help with next year’s fundraiser.
Although most participants at the walk were seniors, Cepuch stressed that strokes can happen to anyone. For more information about symptoms and prevention, please visit, www.heartandstroke.ca.
lmichelin@reddeeradvocate.com
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter