Several years ago, a third grade teacher named Mrs. Higgs honored a student’s poem that had particularly captured her heart. It was all about witnessing a rose being torn apart by a storm. For little Shanan Ballam, it was a defining moment of her journey to become a poet. Little did she know at the time, that first poem would become a fitting metaphor for her own life.
As the new year of 2022 began, 46 year old Shanan Ballam was living out her dream, alongside her husband Brock Dethier. With an M.F.A. in Poetry Writing under her belt, she was working at Utah State University as a senior lecturer of poetry and composition. She had a couple of books and several dozen poems published, and was also serving as the second Poet Laureate of Logan City. As the Poet Laureate, she was giving workshops and writing poems for various events.
On January 9th of 2022, Ballam suffered a massive ischemic stroke. She lost the use of the entire right side of her body. She couldn’t walk. The storm had wreaked devastation. She lost her language as well.
“At first, my mind was completely blank,” said Ballam.
For three days, those who knew and loved Ballam best waited with bated breath, the terrible question on their minds: ”What if the words never come back?”
Then, as they watched a TV game show together in Ballam’s room at McKay Dee Hospital in Ogden, Brock Dethier said to his wife, “I wonder what show this is.” She responded clearly, “It’s ‘Let’s Make a Deal.”
They were the first words Detheir had heard his wife say since she had called out to him for help as she fell to the floor.
After a week at McKay Dee, Ballam was transferred to Ogden Regional Hospital, where she began intense therapy; learning to shower, dress herself, and walk again. Through it all, Ballam had an intense longing to write poetry again. Her speech therapist, Natalie Newhouse, regularly worked with her by playing verbal word games and having her observe everything about her room. She was starting from scratch and these exercises gave her a lot of hope.
“The first thing I remember was the ability to describe what I saw,” said Ballam. “The next thing I remember is that I still had a keen sense of sound. I knew what words sounded good together–rhymes and off-rhymes.”
On February 21st, 43 days after she had been robbed of so much, Ballam wrote, “first poem after the stroke,” using the dictation function on Microsoft Word, as she had lost the use of her dominant hand.
The gauntlet had been thrown down. This poet wasn’t going anywhere.
With the encouragement of her husband, himself a poet as well, and their devoted poetry group friends, Ballam continued to write, each poem a milestone of recovery. As she had since she was a little girl, she continued to weave themes of nature into her poetry.
In October of 2022, her collection “first poems after the stroke” was given an honorable mention at the Utah Original Writing Competition and in 2024 it was published by Finishing Line Press.
Ballam was also able to return to her position at USU for the fall semester of 2022, and in 2023 was able to resume her position as Logan City Poet Laureate. In December of 2024, after lots of hard work and practice, her driver’s license was reinstated. Having now just passed the fourth anniversary of her stroke, Ballam is proud of all she has accomplished, but said recovery has been a long hard road and is still ongoing.
“When I first had my stroke, I thought I would be recovered in six months or something like that,” said Ballam. “And then it turned into a year; a year became my goal. That didn’t happen. And then the goal became two years and that didn’t happen. Then it started to dawn on me that it was just going to take a long time.”
In addition to the loving and constant support from her husband Brock and her golden retriever Josh, Ballam said she has found hope talking with fellow stroke survivors. She had one such encounter with a survivor of 11 years on a hike along Spring Hollow.
“She told me it took years to get to where she is now,” said Ballam. “She was walking normally, which is one of my goals. She told me, ‘Never stop trying.’ I haven’t.”
Ballam said that the three-word-mantra of “never stop trying” is a piece of advice she now gives someone who has had a severe setback in life. Her advice also includes:
- Above all, give yourself grace.
- You are stronger than you think.
- Make gratitude lists.
- Celebrate small wins.
- Listen to uplifting music.
- Get out into nature.
- Allow yourself to feel all emotions.
- Focus on small controllable actions. Don’t try to solve every problem at once.
- Seek support from loved ones, friends, or professionals.
- Join a grief support group.
- Practice self-care such as exercise, mindfulness, and hobbies.
“Patience is the key,” added Ballam. “And you might not be able to get back to who you were, but maybe that isn’t who you were meant to be.”
As Ballam moves forward, she plans to keep writing, walking every day, meditating, and making connections. Having retired from USU in December, she and Brock have since moved to Maine. Ballam still keeps connected to Cache Valley by meeting with their poetry group once a week via video chat and reading Cache Valley Daily regularly. She has also recently discovered a new hobby, and as one might guess, she uses a recurring theme.
“I am learning to watercolor,” Ballam said. “I really love painting flowers and birds.”
“I am a monarch / butterfly who will emerge / with wet wings jeweled / with dew, I am a monarch butterfly / with wings jeweled / and a stained glass heart.”
“first poem after stroke,” by Shanan Ballam