02/16/2026
Movie producer Jonathan Bogner woke up early after a work trip to shower. When he glanced at the shampoo and soap bottles, the words looked like they were written in a foreign language. His heart raced and he sat on the shower bench. His wife, Cindy, and son Oliver, then 15, found him in the bathroom. Oliver called 911.
When the paramedics arrived, Jonathan couldn't speak. In the ER, he learned he'd had two massive strokes that caused aphasia, or language loss from brain damage. He also had myocarditis, or an inflamed heart muscle, possibly caused by a virus.
Jonathan, who was 45, stayed in the hospital for two weeks. He had speech therapy and relearned his numbers. Doctors gave him an implantable cardioverter defibrillator that would shock his heart if it stopped or fell into an abnormal rhythm.
At home, he drilled himself on speech exercises to regain his pre-stroke way of speaking. Eighteen months later, Jonathan could have a full conversation and he sounded like his old self.
For the next few years, he felt OK. Then his heart trouble started.
The first time his ICD shocked him, the jolt sent him tumbling into a rack of magazines. Months later, another shock. A second ICD implanted when the first wore out shocked him six times over the next seven years. After the eighth shock, Jonathan's cardiologist said it was time to go on the waiting list for a new heart.
Sixteen years after his strokes, Jonathan had a heart transplant.
Now Jonathan and Cindy are working on a new reality TV show idea, and Jonathan is developing a podcast about caregivers. He's landed on a new philosophy he calls rigorous optimism. He plans to volunteer at the heart clinic where he was treated to support other patients through their journey.
"I now know I have a different purpose," Jonathan said. "With a sense of humor and irony, mixed with a whole lot of optimism, I choose the path to move forward with my life and be positive every day. Life can change in an instant, as mine surely did. It's what we do next that defines who we are."
