Knight Campus Dept of Bioengineering Asst Prof Parisa Hosseinzadeh was eight months pregnant and doing my daily yoga in November 2022, when she developed a severe headache. Her husband Amir called the emergency services, but she soon lost consciousness.
Hosseinzadeh had a brain bleed and was transferred from the local emergency department in Eugene to a neurological intensive-care unit in Portland. That night, surgeons drilled a hole in her skull and inserted a tube to relieve the pressure. She spent a month there, which ended when her baby was born through a caesarean section.
"My baby was healthy, beautiful and full of joy, and two weeks later we returned home," Hosseinzadeh writes. "But my medical issues were far from over."
In a powerful first-person piece that appears in the recent edition of the journal Nature, Hosseinzadeh recounts her experience and her long road to recovery. She is currently working two days a week, and plans to increase gradually to a full-time schedule in the Knight Campus.
"Is it hard? Yes," Hosseinzadeh writes. "Do I sometimes think it might not happen? Yes. But, with my friends, family and colleagues, we have come this far, and we will finish strong."