Valerie Coomes and her husband Edmund are huge Oregon State University fans, so much so that they often distinguish big events by their proximity to major Beaver games.

That's why, when Coomes talks about the day that changed her life, she notes that it was the day before the October 2006 game between OSU and the USC Trojans. It was the day she almost died, and nearly a year later, she looks back on the event with astonishment.

On that day, Coomes had a brain aneurysm that exploded, landing her in the hospital, and eventually, putting her on a very long and difficult path to physical and mental recovery. But with the help of local therapists, and with extraordinary determination, Coomes went from not being able to get out of bed, to personally delivering a dancing telegram to her medical heroes.

Coomes was pushing hay out of the back of her truck when she felt something strange at the back of her head, much like a pinched nerve.

She didn't feel so good, so she began walking back toward her house, but at every step, the world felt strangely spongey. She said she would normally have ignored the feeling, but her children were home from school, and she was worried that she'd pass out. So she called 911 and then called her husband.

Coomes, 51, said she was lucky, because emergency technicians didn't just treat her condition as a neck sprain. They knew that there might be something far more dangerous at the source of her pain.

Shortly after arriving at Samaritan Albany General Hospital, doctors posted a scan of Coomes' brain on-line, so that doctors at OHSU could take a look at it. The scan confirmed that Coomes had a brain aneurysm, a bubble on the wall of an artery that lay smack in the middle of her brain, which had burst.

Coomes was immediately placed on a helicopter that took her to OHSU, where she was put under the care of neurosurgeon Dr. Stanley Barnwell. Stents were placed in the artery, and platinum coils were inserted to fill up the aneurysm and clot it.

"Getting to it that fast was what really probably saved my life," she said.

As soon as Coomes woke up, she asked her husband who had won the OSU versus USC game, and was relieved to hear the Beavers were victorious. The rest of her first few days of recovery are a little more blurry.

What she can clearly recall, though, is the work that physical and occupational therapists at Corvallis Sport and Spine Physical Therapy. After her surgery, she was left having to relearn almost everything, from getting out of bed to tying her shoelaces.

"I came home the day before the Ducks game," she said, "and was fully intent on going to the Ducks game, but I couldn't even walk up stairs. I had a lot of weakness. It's very similar to stroke victims."

Because Coomes had previously done some therapy at Corvallis Sport and Spine, she decided to turn to them for help recovering. The process was a long and arduous one, because Coomes was really starting from scratch, as one of her physical therapists, Carrol Esterhuizen explained.

"I was shocked to see her for the first time," Esterhuizen said. "She was holding onto the furniture. She couldn't carry on a conversation and do physical activity at the same time. She had no sense of spatial orientation."

After eight months of physical and occupational therapy, Coomes is at about 80 percent of her previous physical and cognitive ability, a huge leap from where she was at the beginning of her treatment.

"From somebody struggling to put on clothes to being able to skip again, that was her major goal," Esterhuizen said, shortly after Coomes had demonstrated her new ability to skip again. "That was a miracle."

It was Coomes' intense determination that helped make her therapy a success, Esterhuizen said.

"She's probably doing a lot better than most people," she said.

Coomes owns Gorilla Grams, a balloon delivery business that also offers dancing gorilla grams to customers. On Thursday afternoon, she put on her gorilla suit for the first time since having the aneurysm, and made a surprise special delivery to Corvallis Sport and Spine.

Her husband Edmund accompanied her, and read a poem she'd composed to her therapists, one that made them a little teary-eyed.

"You've helped her walk without needing help, and to tie up balloons with nary a yelp. She can multi-task, skip and even cook meals! She just can't tell you how grateful she feels."

"This," Esterhuizen said after the presentation, "is the cherry on the cake."