Episode
Living Boldly: How Erica Bazerkanian Turned Her Father's Spinal Cord Stroke Into a Movement | 077
- Published
- Apr 28, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 2069
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Summary
What happens when a healthy, vibrant doctor collapses one day and is diagnosed with one of the rarest neurological events medicine knows — a spinal cord stroke? For Erica Bazerkanian, co-founder and CEO of Bold&Zeal, it became the defining moment that would reshape her entire life. In this deeply moving episode, Erica shares the story of her father Jeff Stone — a beloved podiatrist, lifelong fitness enthusiast, and "joke-a-minute" dad — who suffered a rare spinal cord stroke in June 2016, leaving him fully paralyzed between his C2 and C3 vertebrae. What followed was five months of bedside vigils, lip-reading conversations, family memories shared on a screen, and ultimately, one of the hardest goodbyes imaginable. But out of that grief came something extraordinary. Erica went on to raise over $225,000 for the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation by running marathons — building a team called "Iam Stone" in her father's honour. And in 2025, after a 30-year career in healthcare marketing, she launched Bold&Zeal: a clothing brand built on the mantra Live Bold , that donates 10% of every sale to the Reeve Foundation. This episode is for anyone who has ever lost someone and wondered what to do with that pain — and for anyone who needs a reminder that boldness is a choice you make, even on the hardest days. What You'll Learn in This Episode What a spinal cord stroke is, why it's so rarely diagnosed, and how it differs from a brain stroke How Erica's family navigated 5 months of ICU care, long-term facilities, and the impossibly complex emotions of watching a loved one fight for life Why Erica chose marathon running as her act of grief and love, and how she built a fundraising team from scratch How Bold&Zeal was born, what "Live Bold" means as more than a slogan, a…