Fast Forward

On a warm October evening about two years ago, a group of friends from Chatham, New Jersey boarded a late afternoon train on route to Manhattan to celebrate the launch of Madeline Niebank’s first book, Fashion Fwd How Today’s Culture Shapes Tomorrow’s Fashion. Maddi’s debut work enticed a rather esoteric audience of fashionistas and those who follow the industry, but throughout the book, she touched upon how her experience as a stroke survivor altered her relationship with fashion. Her once beloved high heels were no longer an option and even something as simple as securing a button became a seemingly impossible task. I featured her book on The Pembrooke Place back in 2018 and begged Maddi to give her readers more than a glimpse into her miraculous story. I think this second book must have poured out of her because just two years later, we have Fast Fwd, The Fully Recovered Mindset. Her latest work chronicles Maddi’s journey from emergency brain surgery and the weeks in ICU to the experimental novel therapies at the Taub Clinic at the University of Alabama that may forever alter the future of stroke victims. In each chapter, I felt the brutality of her experience—the friends who did not reach out to her after her stroke; the loss of her angelic voice now devoid of inflection; and the reality of being a twenty-three year old who walked with a cane. Through her struggles, Maddi astounds her readers with a steadfast, almost inhuman determination to overcome her emotional pain and focus relentlessly on gaining the use of her left side. To witness her climb this insurmountable mountain and regain some of her independence in just three years overwhelms me. The moment she slips on a pair of heels as the maid of honor for her friend’s wedding is akin to reaching the pinnacle. Once a fashion girl, ALWAYS a fashion girl. 

Madeline Niebanck has inspired stroke survivors from all over the world through her books and her popular Instagram @maddistrokeofluck. The gratitude she expounds at times makes me ashamed for my silly complaints. I am hoping for yet another book. This story is not over.

Treat Yourself