About Us
Toward the Sunlight was founded with a mission: To inspire, motivate, and empower those on the journey toward brain injury recovery.
I am the owner, founder, and a ruptured brain aneurysm and stroke survivor. I found post-recovery support to be difficult to come by. While I was referred to multiple physical, cognitive and occupational therapies, most would pass me along to the next type of rehab. My issues didn't fall into their categories of treatment. I found post-recovery to be very lonely, not because I didn't have family and friends to support me, but because I felt alone in my symptoms and the rarity of my particular brain injury. However, I knew that I wasn't alone, I knew there were others who had and will experienced this journey. I just needed to connect with them.
Keep your face always Toward the Sunlight, and the shadows will fall behind you. Something Walt Whitman has taught us.
I began to see a glimpse of progress in the Spring that followed a long winter of recovery. I noticed that as the sunshine showed it's face, I began to feel more like myself again. Sunlight is funny in that way, it makes people laugh, smile, want to be outside again — it draws the best out of us.
So, keep your face toward the sunlight, no matter how dark your journey in finding yourself again after a stroke, brain aneurysm, hemorrhage, or brain injury, the sun will always rise again.
Brain Aneurysm Statistics
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How many people have brain aneurysms in the US?
An estimated 1 in 50 people have an unruptured brain aneurysm in the US, with the annual rate of rupture being 8-10 in 100,000 people.
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What is the death rate from brain aneurysms worldwide?
Over 500,000 people die from brain aneurysm per year worldwide, and half are under the age of 50.
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What is the age risk factor?
Brain aneurysm are the most prevalent in people aged 35-60, but can occur in children as well. Most brain aneurysms occur after the age of 40.
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What part of the population is most affected?
Women are more likely than men to have a brain aneurysm (3:2 ratio). Hispanic and African Americans are twice as likely to have brain aneurysms than caucasians.
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Devastation caused by Brain Aneurysms
Ruptured brain aneurysms are fatal in 50% of cases. Of those who survive, about 66% suffer some permanent neurological deficit. 15% of people with a ruptured aneurysm die before reaching the hospital.
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Diagnosis and Treatment Facts
Treatment is usually a surgical clipping or endovascular coiling. Some aneurysms can't be treated. 20% of people diagnosed with a brain aneurysm have more than one aneurysm. Ruptured brain aneurysms account for 3-5% of all strokes.