The Schlaiss Family

Life has definitely been eventful these past few weeks and I am so grateful for a loving Father who never left my family's side. God is so good!


Saturday, June 26th, my mom had a severe migraine. It was so intense that she couldn't sleep much, walk much, and her blood pressure had sky rocketed. This continued throughout the weekend, but we thought it was just a bad headache due to stress or a lack of sleep. Monday rolled around and the migraine was still full force. My mom went to work Monday - Wednesday with the help of Tylenol to semi relieve the pain. By Thursday, July 1st, the pain was so bad that she stayed home from work. In the afternoon she started vomiting, so we took her to the Emergency Room. At Scottsdale Shea she received several CAT scans and MRIs. The doctors found a pool of blood and concluded that she had an aneurysm. Since an aneurysm is so dangerous, they wanted to begin surgery as soon as possible. They were going to send her to Scottsdale Osborn but they were packed, so they transported her to St. Joes. Such a miracle in itself! She was given the head doctor at Barrows and for some reason he had some doubt about the whole situation. All prior testing led doctors to believe it was an aneurysm, but he wanted more testing so he could be 100% sure. After extensive testing all day Friday, the doctor concluded that there was no aneurysm! Can you imagine if he (or any other doctor) went through with the surgery to find out that no aneurysm exists?! My mom gets to keep her beautiful scar free head. I know God was nudging on that doctor's heart to just keep testing and testing!

So how do you explain the bleeding in her brain? My mom had a brain hemorrhage (the same exact thing Bret Michaels was recently in the hospital for...the same hospital actually). They told my family that 50% of the people with this issue do not even make it to the hospital in time and of those people that do only 50% survive. My mom is part of the fighting and surviving 25%! Such a blessing! During her stay there were times where her sodium levels would drastically drop or her heart rate would become so low that they would give her oxygen, but God was there through it all. She was released Wednesday after about a week in the ICU. She will return in the coming weeks for continued testing. She is currently resting, relaxing, and regaining strength. Its still a long road ahead of us, but we are just so incredibly grateful for the amazing mother that God has blessed us with.