10 / matters magazine / summer 2019 oline Toman Snyder, saw the ambulance pull up to their house. That’s when Snyder calmly told her and their kids – 11-year-old Logan and 13-year-old Bro- die – that he had had a stroke and they didn’t need to come to the hospital just then since he’d be undergo- ing a series of tests. Still in control, he didn’t stop to think what it would be like for his children to go to school after seeing their father half paralyzed. In the ambulance, Snyder wracked his brain for details on the last eight hours, wondering if he was a candidate for TPa, a clot-busting drug that can stop a stroke or reduce its severity. He quickly con- cluded that he was, in all likelihood, already past the time when the drug could be safely ad- ministered. (As testing would later reveal, his was a lacunar stroke and he would A s a general practitioner, Hugh Snyder is accustomed to giving and caring. He’s the type of doctor who thrives on getting to know his patients and see- ing them in the same commu- nity he calls home. But recent- ly, the roles were reversed and he learned the beauty of receiving care and concern from others. It all started on March 27, 2018, on what should have been an average morning. Snyder said good- bye to his wife and children who always left together for school. Although his speech was slurred, they thought he was just being funny. It wasn’t until he rolled over to silence his alarm that he noticed something was wrong. He couldn’t turn it off, nor could he roll out of bed. In short or- der Snyder realized that his right side was paralyzed and that he had suffered a stroke in his sleep. He was 47 years old. Ironically, this is what his mother imagined would happen to her. Her mother had died from a stroke at the age of 48 and Snyder’s mother made it known to the family that she expected the same would happen to her. Instead her son was the one to have the stroke. Managing to pull himself out of bed and clum- sily pulling on sweat pants, Snyder called 911 and, with a doctor’s precision, explained his condition, requesting an ambulance to take him to Overlook Hospital. He also called his partner at their practice in South Orange, Samantha Pozner, and said simply, “I had a stroke. I’m not going to come in to work today.” As if it were a one-day problem. Clearly, the enormity of his situation hadn’t sunk in. Snyder is used to being in control. A self-pro- fessed Type-A personality, he admits in retrospect that “I thought I was managing my stress, because I had these distractions,” such as competitive sail- boat racing, skiing, coaching lacrosse – a competi- tive sport – and playing snare drum in a competi- tion bagpipe marching band. On top of that, he was medical director of Seton Hall University Student Health Center as well as the South Orange health department, and he taught physician assistants at Se- ton Hall. The result, he says, is that “there wasn’t any time where I was just ‘being.’” Somehow Snyder got himself downstairs to wait for EMS to arrive, not realizing that his family had just walked out the door. In fact, it was when they were backing out of the driveway that his wife, Car- Resilience in Recovery A local doctor gets a second chance BY ELLEN DONKER Daughter Logan made this card for her dad. He says, " I think this card might be why I did get better." Dr. Hugh Snyder one year, almost to the day, after his stroke.