During a recent episode of Confessions of a Hitman, Bret Hart detailed the battle he’s had overcoming the stroke he had in 2002. Here’s what he had to say:
Hands down, the most challenging battle I ever had; that’s for sure. I’ve talked a lot about my stroke over the years. As difficult as it was, I’ve always been really proud of how I recovered through it. I willed myself to not really give up, and I think it’s a little bit like, I wrote in my book that it was kind of time to be the hero I was pretending to be in [pro] wrestling. I did not give up. I kept pushing the envelope the whole time.
So it’s like, ‘okay, I had a stroke. When do I get out of here? Like, what do I got to do? What’s the plan?’ And you find out pretty quick that there is no plan. You cross your fingers and pray that that day you have a good recovery. And I remember that day I really wanted to recover, I was going to go down fighting.
It’s like if somebody cut your whole body in half with a saw, and the left side is completely dead and the right side is alive. Like, I couldn’t lift my finger or hand, I couldn’t blink my eye. It was wide open. I could close it to sleep. And I’ve always had trouble smiling now, on my left side. … Certain muscles didn’t come back.
I always felt they were [related]. Like, when Bill Goldberg kicked me in the head, I saw stars. I saw a million stars, and I know a lot of people who have seen stars like I did. You know exactly what I’m talking about when you really get rocked. You see stars, a million silver particles in your head flying around in both eyes. When Bill Goldberg kicked me, I could see stars. Then, when I had my stroke, lying on the grass 100 feet from The Pumphouse Theatre on the Bow River there, on the bike path, I remember lying on the grass and I could see just out of my left eye, not the right one. The right eye was fine, but the left eye, it was the same thing. It was a million stars in my left eye, and I remember going, ‘the concussion.’
I’d say I’m about 90%. I think I’d say 90% pretty much. As you get older– like, I remember a few years ago, I did a 300-pound benchpress at the gym. I remember, I went from a guy who couldn’t lift anything; I couldn’t lift a pencil. I remember telling myself, ‘One day, 300 lbs. If I can do 300 lbs. again, that’s as high as I’d ever want to go.’ And I did that a long time ago, like three or four years after my stroke. Five years, I could benchpress. It wasn’t the prettiest benchpress you ever watched, but I’ve always pushed myself and tried to challenge myself to make that left side work, and earn it.
Credit: Confessions of a Hitman. H/T 411Mania.