A STROKE OF INNOVATION?

November 03’2007

Letter to STROKE CONNECTION MAGAZINE

Dear People at Stroke Connection,

Below is my story, I hope you and maybe your readers find it interesting.

AN INVENTION WAS CREATED AS A RESULT OF A STROKE

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On New Years Eve 2001 my family and I were preparing to receive 2002, I almost did not make it, I had a hemorrhagic stroke, my memory is that I thought it was a heart attack because of the pain I felt on my left arm and left side of my chest but mainly I remember a subtle sadness (as I was falling) and thinking this is it? No warning, no nothing? (Like when you step on an ant and she is dead just like that) but I asked God to save me and here I am typing this 6 years later.

When taken to the hospital they discovered also a brain tumor about the size of a golf ball in my brain, the Doctors decided to operate immediately and since I was conscious I signed some papers and they prepared me for the operation sedating me, I regained consciousness and told my son -who at the time was studying Industrial Engineering- make sure they sleep me well, I do not want to hear the sound of the saw they are going to use to cut my skull but he said: they already operated on you and removed the tumor which was not malign, I could not be happier.

The difficult part was my recovery, I had also broken my right hip when I fell down and the left side of my body was totally paralyzed, In summary the consequences were loss of coordination on the left side of my body, stiffness of my leg, short term memory loss, my left eye sees things but tends to ignore them, pain, etc., I’m dealing still with many problems but I found an excellent therapy (I had to abandon my career in manufacturing, I am an Industrial Engineer with a major in electricity and many years of experience including: Product Engineering, Quality Control, injection molding, etc.)

THE INVENTION. - In 2004 I decided to invent a better tortilla warmer because I hate cold tortillas, the Idea evolved in inventing a better ceramic plate since plates are used worldwide, I purchased books, a small kiln, to experiment, researched the internet and filed and obtained the patent myself since I did not have funds to pay a lawyer after all the medical expenses, the patent is: US 7,176,426 http://doiop.com/PatentGoogle

The technology can also be applied among other things to coffee mugs that keep the coffee hot to the last sip without overheating it. My family and I have been using and testing my prototypes (including tortilla warmers) for about 3 years, this is not theory, they work and are safe (which was my main concern 3 years ago).

The plate as far as I know is the first functional improvement to a ceramic plate in thousands of years, it keeps your food hot, all you have to do is preheat it in a microwave oven for 1 to 1.25 minutes and stays hot for half hour (hot, not warm after 30 minutes). The rim does not get hot for easy handling with your bare hands. It has a delay action, reaches maximum temperature 5 to 8 minutes after taking it out of the microwave oven, which means it delivers heat to the food when needed, and slowly at a controlled rate, It is based on the Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation of hot bodies (and a new composition of material I developed, also patent pending), but that is another story, your readers can “Google it” and they can also "Google" “heat retentive plates” there is lots of information in the internet.

Juan J. Ramirez

Survivor

El Paso, TX

jjrb230@sbcglobal.net