# Living Boldly: How Erica Bazerkanian Turned Her Father's Spinal Cord Stroke Into a Movement | 077 Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/resilient-a-f-with-blair-and-alana-7122229/living-boldly-how-erica-bazerkanian-turned-her-father-s-spinal-cord-stroke-into-a-movement-077 Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/resilient-a-f-with-blair-and-alana-7122229/living-boldly-how-erica-bazerkanian-turned-her-father-s-spinal-cord-stroke-into-a-movement-077.md Podcast: [RESILIENT A.F. with Blair and Alana](https://stenobird.com/podcast/resilient-a-f-with-blair-and-alana-7122229) Published: 2026-04-28T11:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://blairkaplan.ca/living-boldly-how-erica-bazerkanian-turned-her-fathers-spinal-cord-stroke-into-a-movement-077 Audio file: https://episodes.captivate.fm/episode/b1cb0b85-a8c1-460a-8883-8f922928e74b.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/resilient-a-f-with-blair-and-alana-7122229/episodes/living-boldly-how-erica-bazerkanian-turned-her-father-s-spinal-cord-stroke-into-a-movement-077 Duration seconds: 2069 ## Resource 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… ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/resilient-a-f-with-blair-and-alana-7122229/episodes/living-boldly-how-erica-bazerkanian-turned-her-father-s-spinal-cord-stroke-into-a-movement-077/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/resilient-a-f-with-blair-and-alana-7122229/living-boldly-how-erica-bazerkanian-turned-her-father-s-spinal-cord-stroke-into-a-movement-077.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.