A few years ago, on a day that had begun like any other, David stood up to leave a restaurant following lunch and was hit by a gentle wave of dizziness. Unaware that he was suffering a stroke, David took a deep breath and kept walking toward his car. “It came on slowly,” David recalls. “But by the time I got to my car my legs and arms had stopped functioning properly.

When 33-year-old high energy mother Renee Young became ill with the flu in November 2007, the last thing she expected was she was about to suffer a stroke. But that was exactly what happened. As she tried to swallow medication and couldn’t, she realized something was drastically wrong.

She has completed medical school, has won the Flying Pig Marathon and has reached the summit of two of Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks. Today Dr. Alison Delgado is tackling a mountain of a different kind. Step by hard-earned step, word by remembered word, the young pediatric resident is coming back from a bicycle accident that caused serious physical and neurological injuries.