Enloe High community rallies to support teacher after brain hemorrhage

The Enloe High School community has banded together to help a teacher facing a long road to recovery after brain surgery.

Cristina Vazquez suffered a brain hemorrhage after school on Dec. 4.

"She had been having a really terrible headache during the day," said Trudy Price-O'Neil, who had mentored Vazquez during her required student teaching before the 23-year-old started full-time as an English teacher at Enloe High last summer.

"She had made it through her classes. It was right at the end of the day, and she went into the teachers lounge, and that’s where she collapsed," Price-O'Neil said.

Vazquez was rushed to Duke University Hospital, where she underwent nine hours of brain surgery to repair an abnormal tangle of blood vessels, known as arteriovenous malformation, that can rupture without warning.

A month later, Vazquez is finally out of the hospital, but she has a long recovery ahead of her.

"To see her go through this has really been heart-wrenching for all of us," Price-O'Neil said. "Her short term memory is still in recovery. They don’t really know what the long-term effects are going to be at this point."

Emily Stout, a social studies teacher who team-teaches with Vazquez, said their students have been sending cards, letters, gifts, care packages, playlists, even a hand-sewn doll – anything they can do to show their love and support to her.

"It’s so hard when you’re that young to hear that something so serious has happened to this person that you see every day, but they instantly were like, 'What can we do?'" Stout said. "They have done so much, and they have helped me through this in more ways than they know – and they’ve also helped Tina through it."

Stout said Vazquez tells her all the time how much she misses teaching and her students and how grateful and touched her family is by the outpouring of support.

A fundraiser on Facebook has already raised more than $20,000 toward her medical bills.

"We’ve all been blown away by the Facebook campaign to raise funds. That has meant so much to the family as those medical bills start coming in," Price-O'Neil said. "She’s going ot need a lot of therapy, a lot of help, and she is so passionate about teaching and about making a difference."