Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor Explains Her Stroke of Genius

The Oprah Winfrey Show | October 21, 2008

When Jill was taken to the hospital, her boss called her mom, G.G., who lived in Indiana, and told her to get her affairs at home in order. G.G. would be needed in Boston for an extended period of time to care for her daughter.

On the third morning after the stroke, G.G. was scheduled to arrive, and Jill says everyone at the hospital was obviously excited—the buzz in the room was all about "G.G." "I'm thinking, what's a 'G.G.'?" Jill says. "I didn't even know what a mother was, much less who my mother was."

Jill says she remembers the exact moment her mother made her entrance. "I'm in bed, and G.G. peeps in around the corner of the room, and the room is filled with my doctors and my colleagues," she says. "And G.G. comes in and she walks past the doctors, she nods to them, she greets my colleagues, she walks around the bed, she picks up the sheet and she crawls in bed with me. She wraps her arms around me and she starts rocking me. And I'm thinking, 'Wow! This is what a 'G.G.' is. This is nice.'"

G.G. says when she walked in the room she felt a need to nurture Jill. "At the time, she was nothing but a breathing body," she says. "There wasn't anything else I could do except hold her."