From 2011 to 2018, Kristin Tracy Porter directed the Disability Resource Center at Chestnut Hill College. What she overcame before getting the position at CHC is the stuff of legends.

On March 2, 2000, Porter was a 22-year-old senior at Albright College in Reading when a malformation she never knew she had ruptured in her brainstem. Doctors gave her family five minutes to say goodbye. She woke up, however, unable to move or speak, and spelled her first word one hand squeeze at a time on her sister’s alphabet chart: “hairball.” A neurologist said she would probably never walk again and would most likely be institutionalized for life. However, she went on to earn two master’s degrees, and 21 years after the stroke, she ran her first 5K race.

Her memoir, “After the Shatter: Reshaping the Face of Healing,” will come out Friday, Oct. 23, six days before World Stroke Day. She will celebrate on Germantown Avenue with two free events: a release-night reading and signing at Chestnut Hill Coffee Company on Oct. 23, 6 to 8 p.m., and a book signing at Booked on Oct. 24, 2 to 4 p.m.

Porter grew up in Bethlehem and attended Albright College in Reading. Eighteen months after her stroke in March of 2000, she went to Bowling Green University in Ohio, where she earned a master’s degree in college student personnel and then another master’s degree in rehabilitation counseling from Hofstra University on Long Island. She now lives in Virginia, where she plans to be a full-time author, public speaker and disability advocate.

She started writing “After the Shatter” in the summer of 2020 and finished it this year.

“The story changed several times,” she told the Local. “I wasn’t sure what message I was trying to send. Now I know, though, that my main message is about healing. I went to a headache specialist for 17 years and used prescription medicines, but there was not much change at all. Then I discovered ‘energy medicine,’ which is nontraditional and nonprescription. I went to a conference in California, where I met a woman who said, ‘You should come to Boston. There are so many other healing modalities there.’ So I spent a week with her at her house.”

Porter’s exploration into alternative healing led her to Integrative Manual Therapy, a holistic, hands-on approach similar to acupuncture and Reiki, in June of 2017.

“I began to feel significant improvement,” she said. “This opened a door after 20 years. Headaches decreased greatly. I was a runner as a young person, and I began running again, even running a 5K. I could not do that before the alternative treatments. I can’t do it now because of problems with joints, but now I do lots of swimming and walking instead.

“My message is to explore alternative modalities if traditional medicine does not work for you. Don’t give up on life. Doctors do not know everything, and they don’t know you. Doctors are not God. Early on, my uncle Walt in Kansas pointed me in the direction of stem cell treatments. I flew to Kansas and spent $9,000 on a stem cell treatment. Then I did great for three months. It was miraculous, but then I went backwards. It was suggested that I go back to Kansas for another stem cell treatment, but I could not afford another $9,000.”

According to Kristine Skiff, spokesperson for Gift an Author Publishing, of Denton, Texas, publisher of “After the Shatter,” “Kristin has dedicated her career to advancing accessibility and inclusion in higher education. Her work bridges lived experience and professional expertise, helping students with disabilities navigate the barriers she once faced herself. Through her writing, teaching and advocacy, Kristin challenges assumptions about ability, resilience and what it truly means to heal.

“She clawed her way through graduate school and into a career. She pushed a damaged body across finish lines. She buried friends she thought she’d grow old with. She fell in love, lost it and had to find the courage to open her heart again. And when medicine could only take her so far, she went looking for healing in places she never expected and found a faith that changed everything.”

For more information, visit giftanauthor.com. Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com.