From Trauma to Recovery: A Patient’s Journey Through Healing and Hope

 Revised May 26, 2026

From Trauma to Recovery: A Patient’s Journey Through Healing and Hope

A Sudden Crisis Leads to Emergency Care

In January 2025, a local hospital transferred Stella Burnside to MetroHealth Medical Center. Hours earlier, an ambulance had taken her to another hospital, where doctors diagnosed her with severe frostbite.

For the first time in six months, Stella was sleeping in a bed. She didn’t wonder when she’d have her next meal. Since the previous July, she had been living in her car.

Life Before the Downward Spiral

Stella’s life wasn’t always like this. She was a homeowner, steadily employed for more than 30 years, mostly in retail management positions. After her divorce, she raised two sons largely on her own.

“I took care of stuff. I was responsible,” she said. “I was very vain about how I looked; everything had to be perfect around me.”

But in 2021, she started to withdraw from most of her family and friends. Once able to get along with anybody, she was now confrontational, convinced that everyone was against her.

That erratic behavior contributed to losing her job in August 2023, which set off a downward spiral.

Stella blew off job interviews. Her savings had evaporated. By July 2024, she had sold her house at a steep loss, unable to maintain the payments. Her credit score was so bad she couldn’t rent an apartment. Unable to pay storage fees, she lost all her belongings.

Health Challenges While Living in Her Car

Living in her small SUV took a toll on Stella. Her legs and feet became swollen. She was treated for a blood clot that formed in her left calf and left foot, but the pain remained.

The only shoes Stella could wear were flip flops. Her only meals were the food she could steal without getting caught.

During a stretch of below-zero days in January 2025, Stella’s car battery died. Desperate, she caught the attention of a man in a parking lot who flagged down a police cruiser. The officer called an ambulance.

A Life-Changing Surgery and a Difficult Loss

Because she had severe frostbite, the hospital sent Stella to MetroHealth’s Burn Center on January 13, 2025. Doctors also discovered a very bad infection in her legs.

For a few weeks, volunteers from MetroHealth’s Peer Mentor Program (a part of the Trauma Recovery Center) stopped by to see Stella. She didn’t want any visitors.

On February 11, 2025, surgeons amputated both her legs below the knee.

“It was a big blow,” Stella said. “I had never cried like that before.”

Traci Grasso, the Trauma Recovery Center’s Peer Mentor Coordinator, had asked another volunteer to check in on Stella.

Finding Hope Through the Peer Mentor Program

On February 14, Seronica Powell walked into Stella’s room. She told Stella she’d leave if that’s what Stella wanted. But first, she wanted to share her story about how, decades earlier, she had dealt with a trauma of her own. When she was five months pregnant, Seronica was severely burned during a domestic violence incident.

Seronica has been a Peer Mentor since 2020. Traci thought she’d be able to break through to Stella, even though Stella had been verbally combative, routinely kicking people out of her room.

“Seronica is magical,” Traci said. “If anyone could get through to Stella, it would be her.”

And she did. For more than an hour, the two women talked while people walked by the room in disbelief.

“Seronica gives you such a calm feeling,” Stella said. “You can tell right away that she cares. You can feel it. Her story really touched me. She gave me hope back. I thought, ’I can come through this. I want to be like her.’”

Something changed in Stella.

Seronica returned a second time. Stella shared her feelings of anxiety and depression. They talked about a tumor, the size of a grapefruit, that was pushing on the frontal lobe of Stella’s brain. Doctors had detected it in a scan after Stella’s ex-husband and one of her sons told them about her behavior over the past couple of years.

Seronica and Traci visited a couple more times.

“They would come by and make me smile and laugh,” Stella said. “It had been so long since I had done that.”

Stella was transferred to inpatient rehab at MetroHealth’s Old Brooklyn campus. When she found out about a support group meeting being held in the building for people who had undergone amputation, she told a physical therapist she wanted to go.

“I saw people who were thriving a year after their surgeries,” she said. “A man next to me had both legs amputated – same as me – and he walked in with two prostheses, no assistance, it gave me hope.”

Overcoming More Obstacles

While spending a few weeks at a skilled nursing facility, Stella returned to MetroHealth for a skin graft procedure to cover exposed tissue at the amputation site. Seronica stopped by to check on her.

Then Stella returned on March 25 for surgery to remove the brain tumor. With it gone, so were her erratic actions and behavior. But blood loss during the procedure left Stella blind in her right eye. It also caused her to lose her sense of taste and smell.

While in the hospital recovering, Stella had a few speech therapy sessions. She also had a visit from Traci. In mid-April, Stella was discharged and transferred to a nursing home. Her recovery continued, helped by mental health counseling and sessions with a physical therapist.

On May 23, Stella had her first appointment with Joelle Gabet, MD, MetroHealth’s Director of Amputee Rehabilitation. By August, she had received her first pair of prosthetic legs and had moved in with her oldest son and his wife.

In November 2025, Stella was waiting for a ride home after an appointment with Dr. Gabet when Traci and Seronica surprised her. It had been months since Seronica and Stella had seen each other.

“I got so excited!” Stella said. “We hugged, we were giggling, so happy to see each other. It was the best thing.”

Regaining Independence and Confidence

Seronica and Traci said they saw a woman who was excited to show them how well she was doing.

“I did not expect to see her so happy and beautiful and energetic,” Traci said. 

“The Stella I saw was a whole different person, from the first time I met her, to when I saw her that day,” Seronica said. “She was looking so happy and bright.”

In January, Stella moved into her own apartment. In February she got a new pair of prosthetic legs, a better fit since losing the 30 lbs. she’d gained in the hospital.

Since March, she’s been working with physical therapist Margo Huber and occupational therapist Mary Harley. After telling Dr. Gabet that she wasn’t happy with the therapy she was getting near her home, the switch was made. In May she started speech therapy again, this time with Melanie Crookston.

A Powerful Story of Resilience

Stella is getting stronger. Her walking gait has improved. She’s relearning how to sit down and stand up. Eager to use her legs more when she goes out, she’s ordered new pants to wear.

“The way Margo and Mary speak to me is making a difference,” Stella said. “They’re pushing me, but in a good way.”

Chosen as one of the speakers for MetroHealth’s annual National Trauma Survivors Day event on May 20, Stella will join Traci and Seronica onstage during an interview-style conversation.

And she’s been getting out more, beyond therapy sessions and doctors’ appointments. She recently went out to lunch with her son and his wife.

“I am currently thriving in ways I never imagined possible,” Stella said. “I truly wouldn’t be where I am today without the incredible expertise and unwavering support of my medical team at MetroHealth.”