We take a break for our normally scheduled Whalers coverage to bring you up to date about a member of the Whalers' Extended Family.
Riley Dunda, 18, is the older brother of the Whalers' Liam Dunda. He split last seasonplaying between the Burlington Cougars and the Hamilton Red Wings of the Ontario Junior Hockey League.
Like Liam, he was drafted by an Ontario Hockey League team, taken by in the seventh round of the 2011 OHL Priority Selection by Sudbury.
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Riley Dunda recently suffered a stroke and is slowly recovering.
The stroke happend last weekend while he was at home. Scott Radley of the Hamilton Spectaor has the story:
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"Saturday morning (5/3/14), Dunda was watching TSN at his Grimsby home when he headed to the kitchen to get something to eat. His mom heard the bang when he collapsed. By the time she got to him, he was unconscious.
The first good break in this story is that of the hundreds of careers she could've had, she used to be a nurse.
"She recognized right away he'd had a stroke or a seizure," dad says.
Living just five minutes from West Lincoln Hospital got the ambulance there fast and got him into medical care quickly, which then got him on his way to Hamilton where a specialist recognized he'd suffered a rare carotid dissection."
Richard Dunda - the father of Liam and Riley - reports further in an email:
"It’s been five days now since Riley had his stroke….He has some brain damage on the left side. The result of that is paralysis on the right side and some impacts on speech, swallowing and other functions.
Having said that, he’s in a way better spot today than he was even a couple days ago. Riley is out of ICU and now in the stroke ward at Hamilton General. All of his various tubes and paraphernalia are gone except for his feed tube in his nose. He has some elements of speech, including a mastery of locker room lingo (apparently a right brain thing – who knew), great left side control and strength and can recognize everyone so no big cognitive issues. He can still tell a story, even if at times it’s a bit random (or is that an teenager thing?). They finally were able to give him a shower today, and he can manage the bodily functions stuff with some support of course.
All in all, really good stuff and wonderful progress.
We’re told they’ll be backwards days, sideways days and forward days. We know he’s a fighter though and will battle through this, just like he did along the boards. One shift at a time."
On 5/10/14, Mr. Dunda shared an update:
"Riley has made some tremendous progress in a week. From being sedated, supported by machines (but not maintained by them) with lines and tubes coming every which way on Monday, May 5th to being able to speak a little (albeit with some struggle), feed himself, read, tell the time and even manage an assisted walk in the hallway of the stroke ward and to make a call on his cell phone, by Saturday, May 10th, it’s been a wonderful week for him.
"The MRI Riley had on Friday, confirmed that brain damage was limited to deep in the left hemisphere of his brain, mostly to areas controlling motor skills, some elements of speech and perhaps some memory. Being only 18 though, the brain is a wonderful thing and if I’m using the term correctly, pretty plastic, meaning it can rewire and remold itself. Time will tell how much and how rapidly or slowly that occurs. It’s enough that Riley is now on a journey to recovery. He is recovered enough now to understand what has happened and the scope and scale of the challenges he faces now.
"Linda, Liam, Mairaed and I are so thankful and appreciative of all the support, encouragement and love that we and Riley have received from everywhere. It’s simply not possible to list everything or everyone who’s reached out, dropped something off, cut the grass, done the gardening, cleaned the house, offered words of encouragement, prayed and on and on. Our family, friends, people in the Grimsby community, the digital community and the hockey community have been absolutely incredible. We are blessed. It’s not possible to explain what that has meant to us over the last week."
The Dundas have constructed a Facebook page to support their son.
Mr Dunda's Twitter handle is @RichardDunda. Lim Dunda' handle is Liam at @LiamDunda. You can also look on @hamredwings.
