Chris’ Journey
As a young, successful business owner and athlete, Chris Bolio rarely took a sick day. One morning, after completing a triathlon, Chris woke up feeling light-headed — dropping things, walking into doors and falling down. His left side was weak, and his foot was dropping, but he did not recognize these as signs of a neurological condition, and wrote it off as a bad start to the day. When Chris saw his podiatrist for a routine exam, he was referred to a neurologist, who suspected multiple sclerosis or a brain tumor. That’s when Chris turned to Methodist.
His physicians at The Methodist Hospital, Dr. Robert Grossman, Dr. David Rosenfield and Dr. James Ling, discovered that despite his young age, Chris had suffered a stroke, caused by a congenital heart defect. Soon he began to deteriorate neurologically, eventually losing his ability to perform simple activities of daily living, including walking and eating. But with the support of his family, his friends and his care team at Methodist, Chris started making progress. “Once I started recovering and knew that I was going to be able to move again, there was no doubt in my mind that I was going to be running triathlons again,” Chris says. And today, he’s achieving that goal. “Methodist will always hold a place in my heart,” he says, “because they brought me back to life.”