After more than ten years, a genuine defender of human rights, Mark Steven Kirk has returned and recently he had a candid conversation with CBS 2 Streaming Anchor Brad Edwards. During his five terms in the US House of Representatives representing 10th Congressional District, Mark Kirk had dedicatedly world in defending human rights and stood in defense of several individuals who needed his support and voice. He had stood in my defense when I felt victim of cruelty and persecution of an Islamist coalition government in Bangladesh that made frantic bids in permanently silencing me for the “crimes” of confronting religious extremism, jihadism, and anti-Semitism.
In 2010, Mark Steven Kirk was elected to the United States Senate by defeating Democrat Alexi Giannoulias. But unfortunately, in January 2012, just over a year into that one term in the Senate, Mark Steven Kirk suffered a fatal stroke. Following the stroke, underwent surgery at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Doctors were forced to perform a three-hour surgery to remove a 4-inch by 8-inch piece of the senator’s skull to reduce swelling on his brain, caused by the stroke. Dr. Richard Fessler, the neurosurgeon who treated Kirk, said the surgery went well and he said he was “very happy” with Kirk’s status, although he said Senator Mark Steven Kirk may have long-term difficulty using his left arm.
During the subsequent eleven years, his name was almost absent from the media. But now, he has returned and it indeed is a great news for me and hundreds and thousands of people from around the world.
During conversation, CBS 2 anchor Brad Edwards asked Mark Steven Kirk what he thought of former President Donald Trump. In response he said: “I didn’t vote for him or support him – and for me, he was too, too racist and too harsh for the Land of Lincoln”. But Kirk added, he was “very much” still a Republican.
On January 21, 2012, he checked himself into Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital after suffering headaches and dizziness. He was later transferred to Northwestern Memorial Hospital after doctors determined he was suffering an ischemic stroke and needed surgery to relieve swelling on his brain.
“When I asked my doctors, I said, ‘What caused my stroke?’ they said, ‘It was the dissection of your carotid artery'”, Kirk said. I said, ‘So what causes dissection of the carotid artery? They said, ‘We don’t know'”.
Does Kirk think stress was why?
“It could have been”, he said. “With stroke comes depression, often, you know. I told the people of the Rehabilitation Institute to ‘give me your toughest candidates – the ones who say, ‘My life is over,’ Kirk said. “I will come in and say it is not over – you’re going to bounce back just like me”.
A full year after the stroke, Senator Mark Steven Kirk triumphantly walked up the stairs on the US Capitol himself. A day before returning to the Congress, he told CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine:
“I did not go through a near-death experience. There was a time when I felt death was close, when I was in the ICU. I had an argument with my mother to bring our pastor, from the Kenilworth Union Church, who came. And I said, ‘Let’s read the [23rd] Psalm’, which everybody in Afghanistan that I served with usually had on do rag that was printed up: ‘Lo, though I walk through the Valley of [the Shadow of] Death, I fear no evil, for thou art with me'”.
But Mar Steven Kirk said his thoughts of death soon were replaced by a determination to live; to recover, not just partway, but all the way.
“I have a lot more confidence once the walking came back, and the reading ability came back. You get the sense that rehab really works, and in my case it does”, Kirk said.
It was my immense joy seeing Senator Mark Steven Kirk on CBS 2. Immediately I sent him a message. Immediately he responded saying:
“Y You bet I hope you are well”. I was thrilled and honored knowing this angelic individual remembers me and wishes my well-being. God bless Mark Steven Kirk!
