Content area
Full Text
Mark Dunham, the former head of the Idaho Association of General Contractors, has had an eventful year. Until January 2012, Dunham was hard at work preparing for the coming legislative session, working on issues such as pre-lien notices and support for the health care exchange. He has served as a board member for the College of Western Idaho since its inception in 2007, and holds many other volunteer positions.
On Jan. 10, Dunham's work was halted by a devastating stroke that hit him early in the morning at home. Three days later, he had another one. He spent 18 days in the hospital, and when he came out, he had to re-learn how to talk and overcome other physical and cognitive difficulties.
The stroke has changed Dunham's world. In June, he left the AGC, and in December he joined Risch Pisca as a lobbyist. In December, Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter appointed him as a commissioner to the Idaho Housing and Finance Association.
Dunham takes things more slowly nowadays, and much more thoughtfully. Idaho Business Review talked to Dunham about how the stroke affected him personally and professionally.
Idaho Business Review: Has the stroke changed you as a person?
Mark Dunham: It's interesting. All of the doctors and therapists and my family and my friends ask that. Often, peoples' personalities change. They get mad easily, or they are very subdued. So all of the doctors and therapists would always ask, 'Are you fine emotionally?' For me, physically I am just fine. They tested all that emotional stuff, they tested my memory because of the severity of my stroke, they knew that I should have had a lot of memory losses, and I didn't. So I'm very, very grateful.
But emotionally I am different. I guess I never really thought about my mortality until the strokes happened, I took a lot of things for granted.
I have a great family, my wife and son, but until you almost lose them, you...