Rachel Ellis
Visual Journalist

Shortly before Christmas last year, Sandra Gonzales was busy with another day of work.

The single mother of two had no idea the headache she experienced that day would turn her life upside down.

“I didn’t think it was that bad at the time. I’m a single mother, so I always have to be strong, I can’t get sick," Gonzales said.

But when the pain wouldn’t quit, the 45-year-old Gonzales asked her brother, Hondo, for a ride to the hospital. There, she learned she had a brain aneurysm and would need surgery.

“It didn’t sink in. I remember thinking, ‘Well, I have to work in the morning, can’t this wait?’" she said.

Five months later, Mother’s Day has new meaning for Gonzales and her children, Santana, 16 and Sa’Miya, 14. This year is about celebrating that Gonzales is still alive and on the road to recovery.

The Saginaw family plans to mark Mother’s Day on Sunday with the usual family gathering and a barbecue.

“Being a single mom means every day is about being a mom. It’s always rewarding to celebrate one day, and it always touches my heart," she said. “And I’m so thankful for the fact that I get to spend and celebrate another year of being a mother after everything that I’ve gone through.”

Sandra was working Dec. 13 at New Hope Valley Assisted Living and Memory Care Community when she experienced an abnormal headache. She saw a yellow blob of light in her right eye. Co-workers said she didn’t seem like herself.

Tylenol and some rest in the break room didn’t help. So she drove home from work just before noon, only to fall asleep for three hours, awaking to the sound of her alarm to pick up Santana and Sa’Miya from school. But the headache was too much for her get behind the wheel.

The glare in her eye began to affect Gonzales’ ability to see, and the pain pushed Gonzales to ask her brother for a ride to the hospital.

“I remember Hondo saying, ‘Wow, it must be bad,’ because I never ask for help or for rides anywhere,” she said.

Three hours passed at the hospital, as Sandra, now joined by her mother, Minerva Garcia, anxiously waited to be seen.

“The pain is killing me and my father passed away from an aneurysm at the age of 55!” she remembers screaming at one point.

Hospital staff performed a CAT scan on her head and discovered she had an aneurysm as well, a bulge in one of her arteries.

She was rushed to intensive care, where she fell asleep and woke up to doctors explaining to her that she was about to have surgery.

“I flipped out and begged to have my kids with me. Since I’m a single mom, it’s just me and them. I called their school and told them I was about to have brain surgery and that I needed my kids," she recalled.

Santana remembers them coming to tell him at school.

“I was in second hour in a meeting when my teacher came to get me. I waited for 30 minutes at the office before my aunt came to take me to the hospital. When we saw her before surgery, it was hard at first, but I just knew she would be fine,” he said.

Her daughter was less confident.

“I starting thinking about all the side effects that could happen because of surgery. I was sad and scared, and I just cried,” Sa’Miya said.

The doctors found the aneurysm attached to an optic nerve in her right eye, which required a procedure through her brain. The location of the aneurysm was in a peculiar, tricky spot, according to Sandra's neurosurgeon Dr. Joseph Adel of St. Mary's of Michigan Neurosurgery. 

"Based on the shape of the aneurysm and Sandra's age, and family history, her case was special," Adel said. "We had to operate through her neck and brain,  removing the aneurysm from her optic nerve on her eye, which put her at risk for loss of vision,"

The risk is high - as much as 80 percent of those who have the surgery suffer sight issues or other complications. Fortunately, Sandra didn't lose her sight.

“After I woke up, I put my hand over my head and felt staples and it was crazy and creepy, plus I had blood draining from my brain. It was a lot to take in,” Sandra said. “Praise God that I woke up to be able to see and move my body. It’s just amazing, I’m so grateful.”

The worst part seemed over. With her sight and mobility functioning, Gonzales made it home just in time for Christmas.

But something didn’t seem right. She couldn’t swallow on her own to take medication.

Within the same week of leaving the hospital, Gonzales checked herself back in and, 15 minutes after arriving, had a seizure.

“One minute I’m talking to my mom and sister, the next minute I’m waking up back in the NICU,” Gonzales said.

Her mother said she knew then her daughter's recovery wouldn’t be so easy.

“At first, you don’t really think anything’s going to change, you think that it’s all going to be okay. But after she went back to the hospital, that’s when I realized that there was going to be a struggle,” Garcia said.