It was April 24, 2022. Erika Chopich, PhD (psychology), was out in her horse barn working with her barn staff. Suddenly she noticed that her speech was becoming slurred to the point she could barely speak. As a former paramedic with a background in medicine and public health, she knew immediately what was happening and headed back to her house to call for help.
Before the paramedics arrived, she had the presence of mind to ask Dr Margaret Paul, her business partner and co-founder of Inner Bonding (a spiritual self-healing process), to grab a healing laser device she regularly used called a McLaren Torch and bring it to the hospital.
"I routinely use the torch on my arthritis and on my horses," the 70-year-old psychologist says. "I don't know how I had the presence of mind in the middle of having a stroke to ask her to bring it."
At the hospital, she knew she was in real trouble when the doctors came in and said she was hemorrhaging in the brain stem. (The brain stem regulates the central nervous system, the heart and respiration, the sleep cycle, and the ability to stay conscious.)
"A hemorrhagic stroke is the most deadly stroke there is, and I could feel that I was struggling to keep consciousness," Erika says. "It was so bad that I actually could feel my spirit wanting to lift out of my body and let go. I just remember thinking over and over, 'I'm not going. I'm staying here. I have horses to take care of and people to take care of, and I'm staying right here.'"
After she was admitted to the ICU, the neurologist came in to talk to her and tell her what she already knew—the situation was dire. He told her that the stroke was most likely the result of her
