Alison Delgado: The Backstory

The worst behind her, Alison was able to focus on rehabilitation and recovery. She progressed rapidly from her lowest point, when she had trouble remembering Tim’s name. They played Uno, Life and Scattergories. Using an iPad, Tim showed her photos and prompted her to search her memory for the words to describe them. Certain words, including “helicopter,” proved elusive at first. Tim also encouraged her to play the video game “Harbor Master,” which hones multitasking skills.

Recovery also meant daily workouts at the gym, with work on the elliptical, weight lifting, and plyometrics to improve her balance. At first Alison had to hold Tim's hand to do lunges; eventually she could do them with weights.

Reading came slowly at first, then more and more quickly. Sometimes Alison would have trouble finding the words she wanted to say, but her improvement and determination never ceased. Her speech therapist asked her to read a medical article and then write about it. She began attending rounds at Cincinnati Children's and, by February 2011, only four months after her initial injury, she had presented two cases at bedside rounds. "Everyone has been great and supportive," Alison said then.

Dr. Zuccarello wouldn’t let Alison run again until he had clipped the second aneurysm and she had recovered from that surgery. But Tim kept her motivated, and on May 1 she made a triumphant comeback with a third-place finish in the Flying Pig 5k. “We are focused on one goal: getting her back to work and to where she feels normal,” Tim said. “She will feel normal when she gets back to work.”And Tim is keeping her motivated. “We are focused on one goal: getting her back to work and to where she feels normal,” Tim said. “She will feel normal when she gets back to work.”

Dr. Zuccarello wouldn’t let Alison run again until after she had recovered from the surgical clipping of the second aneurysm, which he performed in early March 2011. But Tim was keeping her motivated. "We are focused on one goal: getting her back to work and to where she feels normal," Tim said. "She will feel normal when she gets back to work."

Finally, in April, Alison began working part-time. In May she was back full-time.

“I have been back at full speed over the past year,” she said in March 2012. “I'm always asking for feedback from my attendings to make sure my performance is the way it should be, and everyone has given me good feedback. Over the past year I actually wrote a case report with two of the emergency department attendings, and we have submitted it to the journal Pediatrics.”

Alison will have to make up extra time in residency but is expecting to finish in December 2012. “After that, I plan to do primary care, but I have also been thinking about a sports medicine fellowship,” she said. “Right now, I'm actually training for the Flying Pig Marathon, which is happening on May 6. I've been in pretty good shape since I was able to start running again last year.”

And then there are those mountains. There are 54 peaks in Colorado over 14,000 feet, Tim noted. “She wants to get the last 52.”