GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Michael Mosqueda is finally home. But the return was a long time coming.
Back on July 5th, his wife feared for his life.
"I woke up in the middle of the night to him slurring his speech," says Jackie Mosqueda. "When I flipped on the light he was actually, like, his hands were gripped real tight and having a stroke."
Mosqueda was rushed to the hospital, where doctors told him he needed immediate brain surgery to fix three different brain bleeds. But that was only the beginning. Over the next three weeks, he also underwent spinal surgery and open heart surgery all related to a staph infection.
"I asked my wife if they gave me a percent of how I would make it," recalls Michael. "She said yes, they said 25% chance. And I was like, 'you went with it?' That's a terrible bet!"
The bet paid off, but not without challenges. Mosqueda came out of the procedures unable to sit up in bed on his own, swallow solid foods or move any part of the left side of his body.
"If you would stand on the left side of him, he would not be able to notice you were there unless you tapped him on the shoulder," says Jessica DeGroot, a speech-language pathologist at Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital.
DeGroot was one of Michael's therapists at Mary Free Bed. She says when he first arrived, things looked grim. But after a couple weeks of improvement, he turned a corner.
"We knew he was going to go home," she says. "And we knew that we were going to do everything in our power to make it."
After about a month in rehab, Michael returned home on September 16th. Now able to walk with the help of a cane and do other things independently again, he'll never forget his physicians.
"Some of those relationships, hopefully I will never stop," says Mosqueda. "I hope to continue them. Without them, I wouldn't be here."
Mosqueda is now able to continue his rehab process at home in Holland.
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