“I covered his trach and he started talking to me,” she said.

Scott Hawkins was just 37 years old when his whole world turned into something completely different.

Scott had a severe massive stroke while his wife Danielle was attending a class in a nearby county.

Her husband was at home taking care of their kids when Danielle got the phone call she will never forget.

It was an April day when Danielle attended a class in a bordering county and Scott stayed home with their children at their Durand residence in Michigan.

”He called me and he was slurring his words,” Danielle remembered.

”He said he had an intense headache and that something was wrong.”

Danielle and Scott both phoned 911 and a medical team arrived right away to rush Scott to the hospital.

”When emergency medical crews loaded Scott into the ambulance, his blood pressure spiked, causing fluid in the lungs,” Danielle stated.

”It was just very, very bad,” Danielle added before taking a long pause, admitting, “Sometimes it’s hard to talk about it.”

The emergency medicals had to intubated Scott in the ambulance.

When the couple got to the hospital, doctors told Danielle to call the rest of the family members.

She was told that her husband would most likely not make it through the night.

“His oxygen levels were in the 60s and 70s. They told me they should be above 90”, Danielle said.

Scott had suffered a burst arteriovenous malformation aneurysm near his brain stem.

The aneurysm, which he had lived with since birth, caused a stroke.

When the surgeons tried to stop the bleeding in his brain, Scott tragically suffered a heart attack during the procedure.

“They lost him for a few minutes,” Danielle said. “He had loss of oxygen because of that, too.”

A week after the event, Scott remained unable to respond or follow direction.

Doctors told her at this stage, he was probably not going to wake up. Danielle was told that her husband would likely never regain consciousness or function normally again, let alone ever be able to kiss her or tell her that he loves her. This was heartbreaking for Danielle.

“They told me to let him go,” Danielle said.

But she refused to buy into their devastating prognosis.

And Danielle knew something even the doctors didn’t know — the resolve of Scott’s spirit.

Instead of pulling the plug and telling Scott goodbye, Danielle leaned over to kiss her dying husband.

As she put her lips to his lifeless body, she felt something she never thought was possible: Scott kissed her back.

Maybe Danielle was imagining it, she now claims. But that little sign was enough for her to believe in, enough to keep life support plugged in, and enough to forever alter the course of their lives.

With newfound hope, Danielle fought to keep Scott on life support, determined to show everyone that he would recover.

Her belief in Scott was slowly returned in life function. After five weeks in pulmonary rehabilitation, Scott no longer needed a ventilator.

“That’s where I started proving to everyone (that he could recover),” Danielle said.

“He’s a musician, so I would bring in thumb guitars. He would flick the notes. Doctors said it was just a reflex. I told him to change the notes and he did.”

Danielle knew that if Scott tried to speak to her, he wouldn’t be able to do so because of his tracheotomy, an incision in the windpipe made to relieve an obstruction to breathing.

But in a leap of faith, Danielle covered up the surgically created airway in Scott’s neck — and he started talking to her.

“I covered his trach and he started talking to me,” she said.

“The first words were, ‘I love you,’ the second, ‘get me pain medication.’ Then, when the doctors asked him, ‘what are you playing?’ he said, ‘an instrument.’ The doctors started to believe in us.”

With this indisputable proof of his will to persist, doctors finally started to believe in Scott.

Soon he was moved to Spectrum Health’s Rehab and Nursing Center. Scott arrived there in an ambulance and spent six days a week in rehab for the next 16 weeks.

Finally, after 16 weeks, Scott was going to go home — and he was going to do it on his own two feet.

“He went in on a stretcher only moving his right hand, and he left walking with a walker with one hand in the air saying, ‘Rock on,’” a thankful Danielle said.

Danielle thanks the staff at Spectrum for Scott’s speedy recovery.

“They started talking to Scott like he was there,” Danielle said, remembering how the rehab staff fueled the hope she had all along.

Also, Danielle never left her husbands side. She offered amazing support, encouragement and even tough love when needed.

Danielle absolutely believed he would recover. Even when they told her to call the family that first night, she just never felt it. She never believed Scott would pass away.

Scott still needs to recover for a very long time, but he’s making progress, step by step.

“He’s playing guitar again. He plays the drums. It used to be he couldn’t swallow. He had a feeding tube for nine months, but now he can eat anything he wants,” Danielle said.

I think that the most amazing medical miracles happen when we believe that they can happen and give care with that in mind!

The greatest thing you can give someone is an opportunity.