The Day Our Lives Were Changed Forever

On January 24th, 2003, the day started out normal, and I was off to the church to work.  I had resigned from Northwest Airlines and started working at our church 3 weeks prior to this day.  In the afternoon, I started feeling funny.  Soon, my arm and leg on the left side went numb.  At the age of 29,  I suffered a massive stroke.  My parents had moved to MN from TX to be closer to us and were just a few minutes away from the church.  Although I couldn't speak, I knew my Mom was there before I lost consciousness.  I was rushed to the hospital and they determined the problem right away.  I had had a bleeding stroke.
There are two types of bleeding strokes.  The first one, which is the one I suffered from, is called an intracerebral hemorrhage.  This is when blood vessels inside the brain bursts and bleeds in the brain.  I had a malformation of blood vessels on the right side of my brain that was never detected.  The amount of blood on the right side of my brain when the stroke happened was the size of a fist.  With the second type of stroke, a blood vessel breaks and bleeds into the space between the brain and the skull.  The type of stroke I had accounts for only 13% of all strokes.  Research shows that my type of stroke is the most lethal and hard to recover from and result in death as much as half the time.  Only about a fifth of those who survive function independently.  I am so blessed to be where I am in my recovery today!
On the evening of January 24th, I went through emergency brain surgery to stop the bleeding.  I was in a drug induced coma for 17 days.  When I woke up, I had lost all function on my left side.  So we started from the beginning.  First we learned to sit up and balance and then kept working on it till I could eventually walk with lots of assistance.  I went to rehab to start working for a month.  On February 26th, I had my next brain surgery to remove the malformation.  The surgery was successful and there was not a chance of another stroke.  Now I just had to work hard on therapy and see what I could get back.  I came home at the end of March.

Our Trip to Norway, Sweden, and Amsterdam

Our last big trip before Lori's stroke!  We traveled to Norway, Sweden, and Amsterdam and had a wonderful time.  We are so thankful we had the chance to go!

Dainis Graduates with His Bachelor's Degree

Dainis graduated from Embry Riddle Aeronautical Universitywith his Bachelor of Science degree in Professional Aeronautics.

Our New Life Together

After returning from our honeymoon. we settled into our new home in Lakeville, MN.  Dainis worked for Northwest Airlines when we met and I started working in sales and marketing there after we were married.  We had a great life and blessed with so many wonderful things.  We both had flight benefits and had the opportunity to travel.  Dainis went back to school after we had been married for a few years and graduated Spring 2002 with his Bachelor's of Science and Professional Aeronautics degree.  We decided to start our family and were very excited to start the next stage of our lives.  We did all the things everyone says you should do before you have kids.  We bought the mini-van, fenced our backyard, and bought a dog!!!  Our dog was a border collie named Tasha.

Our Honeymoon

We went to Nassau, Bahamas for a week after our wedding and had a wonderful time on the beach.  We are so excited about our life together!