A Discovery Channel portrayal of an Imperial homemaker’s ordeal after being diagnosed with a grapefruit-sized brain tumor and the stroke it precipitated
aired on The Discovery Health Channel in March 2006.

Barbara Marshall, 48, collapsed while shopping in the El Centro Target store Feb. 13, 2005, and was taken to El Centro Regional Medical Center’s emergency room with a suspected diagnosis of a stroke. In the emergency room, Dr. Michael Berry ordered a CT scan that revealed the brain tumor.

Marshall was airlifted within hours to Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, where doctors kept her under observation for 12 days before performing a 12-hour operation to remove the tumor Scripps doctors said was the largest brain tumor ever surgically excised at that hospital.

Some 13 months later, Marshall’s husband, Jack, said Barbara “has mobility, is walking and talking and doing most of her own housework. If you didn’t know her story, you’d never guess all she’s been through.”

Jack Marshall said he is eager to get the word out about the time of the episode’s airing because “a lot of people we know want to see it.”

Barbara Marshall still wears a brace on her right leg part of the time, but her husband said more often than not she gets around the house without it.

He said a residual slight hesitation in her speech and traces of paralysis in her right arm and leg remain as a result of the stroke.

He said her determination remains strong to fulfill the doctors’ original prediction that she would make a full recovery.

A month after her surgery, she was sent to a rehabilitation clinic where she underwent three to four hours of physical therapy each day as well as speech therapy.

A camera crew from the Discovery Channel was on scene at ECRMC in October to capture a re-enactment of Marshall’s ordeal, with Marshall participating.

The program is part of the Discovery’s “Medical Incredible” series that reenacts the case histories of remarkable recoveries.