Educator defied the stroke odds and now gives hope to others
Emilio was 5 and in kindergarten when he heard his mother speak for the first time.
“Good morning, baby,” Doris Hernandez-Morales said, tears filling her eyes.
She had gone through five years of intense rehab after her stroke to say three simple words that sent her son rushing into her arms.
Good morning, baby.
Doris was five months pregnant with Emilio when she suffered a massive hemorrhagic stroke in 2002. Her doctors gave her their worst-case diagnosis. It was likely she would never walk or talk again.
With her eyes, she pleaded for an answer to the most important question she had. What about my baby? Can you save him?
“I was so swollen everywhere, like a balloon, and the doctors were more scared for the baby than anything else,” Doris remembers. “My brain was so swollen they had to take out part of my skull to relieve the pressure.
“They put it in the hospital freezer, and a month after Emilio was born they gave it back. You can tell the difference looking at my face, but I don’t care. Thanks to the love of my life – my husband Martin – and the incredible doctors and therapists, it wasn’t only me who survived, but more importantly, our baby boy, Emilio.”
At night, before she put her son to bed, they would study the words he had learned that day in kindergarten — words Doris had to relearn herself. Before her stroke, she was director of MESA — math, engineering and science achievement — at American River City College in Sacramento.
A vibrant, young educator with a bright future. Now, she was literally back in kindergarten with her first born, learning to write left-handed because her right side had suffered complete paralysis.
In three years of rehab, she had made little progress in talking or walking. Without it, her insurance company ceased paying for her rehab. If she could show them progress in the future, they would reinstate her coverage, they promised.
“I continued by myself, working harder and harder, and finally the progress began to come. I was still in a wheelchair most of the time, but I was slowly regaining my ability to walk and talk. Not everyday, it would come and go.”
That was enough for the insurance company to pay her rehab for two more years — enough to give her the professional help to finally let Emilio hear her speak.
Now, he’s a 21-year old young man embarking on his own future while his mother returns to what she does best — educate.
Two mornings a week, Doris walks the hallways of the rehab center at Northridge Hospital Medical Center visiting stroke victims, and delivering the one thing medical science has not found a pill for, yet.
Hope.
“When Doris first came to us, I marveled at her story and her ability to defy all the odds stacked up against her,” said Karen Sabatino, manager of volunteer services at the hospital.
“She connects with our patients on a level that is indescribable and helps them during the most difficult time in their lives.”
Times Doris knows all too well.
“If they can talk, I ask them to tell me their story,” she said. “I will sit at their bedside and listen for as long as it takes. Then, I will tell them my story. If they can’t talk, I ask them to please listen. I’ve been where they are now.”
There will be bad days ahead, the educator tells them, days when you are so tired that the words you thought you had learned are gone again. It will be frustrating, but remember you’re still here, you’re alive, and you will make it back.
“Don’t give up hope,” Doris tells them. “Regardless of everything, it’s all about hope.”
Dennis McCarthy’s column runs on Sunday. He can be reached at dmccarthynews@gmail.com.