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Megan’s Catastrophic Injury and Her Improbable Journey
On October 18, 2017, Megan went to work and began to have a severe headache that began to worsen at an alarming rate. The last words she said before losing consciousness were “call paramedics.”
It was later determined that she’d had an aneurysm caused by an Arteriovenous Malformation, which left her in a coma with an acute brain stem stroke.
Overcoming the Odds:
That she was trending towards brain death. Megan over-breathed her ventilator the next day, showing that she was NOT trending towards brain death.
That she would likely never wake up. She started responding to her fiancee's questions a month and a half later.
That she was locked in and would only be able to move her eyes. Megan moved her head the next day.
That if she ever did start to recover, that she would be severely paralyzed on her right side. She is now relearning to play the piano. With both hands. In fact, she is right-side dominant again.
She was told she should give up on trying to eat food again because she would never pass a swallow study. Instead, she created her own vocal therapy and constantly worked to talk and swallow. She passed her first swallow study 1 year and 10 months after her initial brain injury.
Her Journey
Megan was in the surgical ICU for two and a half months before discharging to an Acute Rehab and Long Term Acute Care Hospital. She spent 4-months in Acute Rehab before recovering enough to graduate to inpatient post-acute rehab.
Megan moved to Dallas and underwent 40+ hours of therapy every week for 14 months before declaring to all that it was time for her to move back to Austin.
Megan now spends her weekdays in outpatient therapy, retraining her body to function as it did once before. She spends her nights and weekends at home with her fiancee.
Where She’s At In Her Recovery
Since waking up, Megan has been relentless in her drive to recover. Her drive has been said to be “absolutely inspiring” by many of the therapists she has worked with.
She went from being completely paralyzed, to now being able to walk with a platform walker and perform most self-care activities with little to no help.
Currently, she is working on the following goals:
* Practicing putting in contacts
* Transferring in and out of bed safely on her own
* Sitting and standing on her own, unassisted
* Talking — she’s created her own therapy for learning to talk and recently had vocal fold injections to close them more.
How Equine Therapy Will Help Her Further
Megan’s recovery is backwards in many ways to normal stroke patients. She started recovering in her fingers and toes first, then her arms and legs, and finally the larger muscle groups such as her core and back muscles.
These larger muscle groups control our ability to stand and sit safely, our ability to walk and run, and our ability to live independently.
This GoFundMe is built around helping Megan improve those larger muscle groups through Equine Assisted Therapy.
In many ways, Megan is at the final frontier of her progress. The easy and obvious steps have been taken and have been successful, but she is not back to 100%, so she is not satisfied.
This therapy will help Megan in ways her other therapies can’t. By allowing her to interact with and ride a horse this therapy will improve the strength in her legs, core, and back muscles.
This will help improve Megan’s posture and dramatically improve her ability to walk.
Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers. You can further support Megan by reposting this and following her recovery on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/megansmiracle
On October 18, 2017, Megan went to work and began to have a severe headache that began to worsen at an alarming rate. The last words she said before losing consciousness were “call paramedics.”
It was later determined that she’d had an aneurysm caused by an Arteriovenous Malformation, which left her in a coma with an acute brain stem stroke.
Overcoming the Odds:
That she was trending towards brain death. Megan over-breathed her ventilator the next day, showing that she was NOT trending towards brain death.
That she would likely never wake up. She started responding to her fiancee's questions a month and a half later.
That she was locked in and would only be able to move her eyes. Megan moved her head the next day.
That if she ever did start to recover, that she would be severely paralyzed on her right side. She is now relearning to play the piano. With both hands. In fact, she is right-side dominant again.
She was told she should give up on trying to eat food again because she would never pass a swallow study. Instead, she created her own vocal therapy and constantly worked to talk and swallow. She passed her first swallow study 1 year and 10 months after her initial brain injury.
Her Journey
Megan was in the surgical ICU for two and a half months before discharging to an Acute Rehab and Long Term Acute Care Hospital. She spent 4-months in Acute Rehab before recovering enough to graduate to inpatient post-acute rehab.
Megan moved to Dallas and underwent 40+ hours of therapy every week for 14 months before declaring to all that it was time for her to move back to Austin.
Megan now spends her weekdays in outpatient therapy, retraining her body to function as it did once before. She spends her nights and weekends at home with her fiancee.
Where She’s At In Her Recovery
Since waking up, Megan has been relentless in her drive to recover. Her drive has been said to be “absolutely inspiring” by many of the therapists she has worked with.
She went from being completely paralyzed, to now being able to walk with a platform walker and perform most self-care activities with little to no help.
Currently, she is working on the following goals:
* Practicing putting in contacts
* Transferring in and out of bed safely on her own
* Sitting and standing on her own, unassisted
* Talking — she’s created her own therapy for learning to talk and recently had vocal fold injections to close them more.
How Equine Therapy Will Help Her Further
Megan’s recovery is backwards in many ways to normal stroke patients. She started recovering in her fingers and toes first, then her arms and legs, and finally the larger muscle groups such as her core and back muscles.
These larger muscle groups control our ability to stand and sit safely, our ability to walk and run, and our ability to live independently.
This GoFundMe is built around helping Megan improve those larger muscle groups through Equine Assisted Therapy.
In many ways, Megan is at the final frontier of her progress. The easy and obvious steps have been taken and have been successful, but she is not back to 100%, so she is not satisfied.
This therapy will help Megan in ways her other therapies can’t. By allowing her to interact with and ride a horse this therapy will improve the strength in her legs, core, and back muscles.
This will help improve Megan’s posture and dramatically improve her ability to walk.
Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers. You can further support Megan by reposting this and following her recovery on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/megansmiracle
Organizer and beneficiary
Sarah Gauthier
Organizer
Rosslyn, TX
Megan Guerra
Beneficiary