ABSTRACT
Roger Ross was a big man, in almost all ways larger than life. We learned an incredible amount from him over the course of the six years we worked with him, collectively and individually. Roger Ross had incurred a stroke at the age of 62, 3 years before I1 met him in 1994. Although he had exhausted his benefits for reimbursed services, he continued to seek help. Ruona Bertaccini, of Martha Taylor Sarno’s staff, referred him to me when he moved from New Jersey to Scottsdale Arizona, 120 miles from Tucson. A few months later, he began coming to our clinic weekly, to participate in our aphasia groups, and to continue individual treatment. He was a linchpin in our programme until September 1999, when he suffered a second stroke that left him unable to drive the 250-mile weekly round trip. This second stroke seemed to “move about the wiring in my head” (to quote him) so that his speech, if not slightly better, was certainly no worse. I remained in frequent contact with him until his untimely death resulting from complications of a fall, in October 2000. I last saw Roger Ross in late August of that year. We will always miss him as our friend and teacher. He was our partner on a 5year journey we took to unravel his aphasia and what could be done about it.
