Cecropia Strong

Julie was a Marblehead, MA management consultant and author, and she knows how you can suddenly
lose everything with a debilitating illness (or accident.) For her, it was a stroke.

Seven years ago, she had one. She was found by friends three days later on the floor of her apartment
(she lives alone). In those three days, her stroke went from being ischemic (being caused by a blood clot)
to the more serious and lethal condition of having a brain bleed (a hemorrhagic stroke). she couldn’t
talk, and her reading slid back to elementary-school levels: aphasia had taken her words from her. She
suffered the death of between 20-25% of her brain cells – and brain cells don’t heal. Dead is dead! And
she lost the use of the right side of her body.

But she fought back, and she’s since made considerable gains towards recovery. These are the reasons
why she founded Cecropia Strong: a charity that aids folks with disabilities.