Five years ago Kaitlyn Moody’s life changed forever. A 15-year-old who was in high school in Mandeville, she got a sudden and severe headache that was so bad she had to call her mother.

“You need to come soon, it’s really hurting,” she recalled telling her mother. “About five or six minutes later I was on the floor, crouching down and holding my neck.”

Kaitlyn didn’t realize that she was suffering from a problem with the blood vessels in her brain. Instead of branching out like spread fingers, as they should have been, the vessels were tangled, and they finally gave way.

"The headache that she had is a result of the blood vessel breaking resulting in blood leaking into the brain, raising the pressure inside of her brain, and that's why she had that very, very bad headache," said Dr. Frank Culicchia, the chairman of neurosurgery at the LSU Health Sciences Center.  

Culicchia performed brain surgery on Kaitlyn at West Jefferson Medical Center. She had a choice of taking a one time dose of radiation from the Gamma Knife that was easy and non-invasive, but it wouldn't have destroyed the tangle and its risks for two years.

"The advantage of surgery is that there is an instant removal, so there is no further risk of hemorrhage," said Culicchia. "The disadvantage of surgery is the risk of the procedure, the blood loss that may occur, the damage that could occur to the brain as a result of removing the malformation."

After the surgery and a brief coma, life had to start over.

"It was like I had an infant again." said Kaitlyn's mother Renée Moody. "She couldn't walk. She couldn't talk. She couldn't sit. She couldn't feed herself. To see her struggle with that was the hardest thing to do."

"It was very, very difficult," recalled Kaitlyn. "I was on the volleyball traveling team and I had just made the volleyball high school team and going from being active and having fun and a carefree life to worrying about if I am going to survive or not - that was a big change."

Kaitlyn pushed hard in physical therapy, doing more than the therapists asked. This was important, since most of the brain recovery after a stroke happens in the first year, especially in the first three months.

When she'd get home her father pushed her even harder. However, in January, her father died from a stroke and brain hemorrhage with a problem totally unrelated to what she had.

Now Kaitlyn's in college in Lafayette. Gone are the days when high school peers who didn't understand her illness treated her like an outsider. Gone is that year when she thought alcohol would make her fit in.

Her balance is still a little off and there's some weakness on one side. She's also lost hearing in one ear.

Despite the difficulties, she says she has learned a lesson that she hopes others will heed.

"I've learned never to give up even if nothing is going for you. Never give up because you will see the light at the end of the tunnel, trust me," said Kaitlyn. "Even if they don't have everybody behind you, you have yourself behind you and that's the most important part of it."