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Stroke Survivor of the Month -
March / April 2004
Nick Milivojevich
Orangevale, CA

We should all take lessons from this man who has learned the art of survival from childhood through adulthood… and he's done it all ALONE. He has lit a torch and is actively continuing to share his story with the world so that others might be enlightened. Nick, "Shine on!"

Nick says:

"I was born in 1948 in a refugee detention camp in Hamburg, Germany. My parents were Serbs who had been forced to work in Nazi labor camps. When the war ended, they had no home. I immigrated to the United States with my family and spent most of my childhood and early adult life in Chicago. I was a smoker, but most Serbs are known to be big smokers. United Airlines hired me as a ramp worker, loading and unloading baggage and freight. In 1998 I was transferred to Sacramento International Airport and I found a home in Orangevale, California. That's when the course of my life took an unexpected turn.

It was just after lunch and I was pushing freight into the front part of a plane. I felt dizzy, but I managed to get out of the plane and down the ramp before I collapsed. It was literally "a stroke of luck" that it happened at work, where emergency medical assistance was immediately available because I live alone. I was rushed to a hospital and received t-PA, the FDA-approved clot-busting drug that is most effective when administered within a few hours after a stroke. But even with the quick response the stroke was severe enough to leave me paralyzed on my left side and unable to walk or talk. I was told that on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the worst-possible stroke, mine was a 9.5.