Zebulon — Last year on Valentines Day a Zebulon girl and her family received more love from the community than they could have ever expected. Eleven-year-old Madeline Ray, was attending her brother Trevor’s basketball game at Zebulon Middle School on Feb. 14, 2007, when her head began to hurt unexpectedly.

“I knocked out my contact, so I went to the bathroom,” Ray said. “Then I started turning weak on my left side and the right side of my head hurt really bad.”

Just minutes later, she began to slur a speech. Her mother, Amy, being a nurse, immediately realized something was not right.

In the bathroom, Madeline became so weak her mother had to carry her out. She carried her down the steps and laid her down on the bleachers, telling those around to dial 911.

“By this point there were people gathered around us and people praying, many of them people we didn’t even know,” Ray said. “I thought she had had a stroke, but just couldn’t believe it.”

“We were surrounded by support from every direction, immediately,” Madeline’s father, Michael Ray, said.

In fact, Madeline had suffered a stroke. Her left side was paralyzed at the time, but the stroke was but an indicator of more serious complications.

Zebulon EMS arrived at the school and transported Ray to WakeMed. A CatScan revealed there was bleeding in her brain, and it was immediately decided the condition needed to be addressed at UNC-Chapel Hill. Ray was flown there by helicopter.

“I just felt like someone had unplugged me,” Michael Ray said, noting so much change in such little time was unreal. “You just don’t think about this kind of thing happening to your daughter. Madeline was very athletic at this point.”

At Chapel Hill, another CatScan revealed the bleeding had come to a halt. Madeline, however, was still weak.

Michael Ray said at this point, there were more than 25 people waiting at the hospital in support of Madeline.

After one day in the intensive care unit, doctors still didn’t know what was causing the bleeding.

At that point, those present told Michael and Amy to take a break, that they’d been up too long and needed to go take 15 minutes and rest.

They did so, but after five minutes, Madeline had somehow managed to remove her oxygen tube while one hand was tied down and the other paralyzed. Furthermore, she hadn’t spoken in hours, and now she was up yelling and her speech was clear.

That was a good sign, as she maintained normal signs for the first time in what, to any parent, would be a long time. But shortly afterward doctors located the source of the problem.

After an arteriogram and an MRI, doctors discovered an AVM on Madeline’s thalmus.

AVM’s are arterio-venous malformations, or abnormal collections of blood vessels, similar to an aneurism.

Normally oxygenated blood is pumped from the heart to the brain through branching tubes called arteries. In the brain the blood enters a network of tiny vessels called capillaries.

In these capillary networks, the blood nourishes the tissues. Used, or deoxygenated, blood then passes back to the heart and the process repeats itself.

AVM’s are areas that lack these tiny capillaries. An AVM can be thought of as a short circuit, where blood does not go to the tissues but is pumped back to the heart without ever giving nutrients to the tissues.

Michael Ray said the condition is commonly described as a “silent killer.”

Madeline, was admitted to the hospital on Wednesday. By Saturday, she was through rehab, released and sent home.

Doctors at Chapel Hill agreed an operation needed to be done elsewhere, and the hunt for that location commenced.

After six to eight weeks of occupational therapy, and an equal amount of time researching the most qualified center for Madeline’s treatment, her parents decided Boston’s Mass General Hospital had the most AVM experience with the best form of radiation in this procedure — proton radiation.

“This is just another example of how much people helped us out,” Michael Ray said. Something as simple as donated plane tickets meant a world to the family.

“It was just incredible how things happened. The doctors said it was the right place, we had the means to get there, my wife had the knowledge to research and agree on the type of treatment, it just all fell together,” Ray said.

In Boston, doctors inserted marking beads in Madeline’s head, and three days later she went into radiation for an hour.

The Ray family spent three days of preparation for the radiation and three days to ensure Madeline’s health, and just that quickly they were able to return to Zebulon.

Madeline has had partial seizures, including hallucinations where she sees, hears or smells something that isn’t there. She’s had two MRIs since she’s been back and a neurologist follows the seizures closely.

As of Jan. 10, she won’t have another MRI for 18 months, she can play sports again in June, roughly one year after her last radiation treatment.

“AVM — A Valentine Miracle — that is what AVM will stand for from this point forward for the Rays anyway,” Amy Ray said.

“The main point ... is really a family that saw a lot of love,” Michael Ray said as the one-year anniversary of the incident approached. “The community, the school system, churches — all forms of people surrounded her that day to help and pray. I didn’t know half of those people and I know they didn’t know us. We were blessed beyond belief. We never got to thank everyone in the community who helped Madeline that day and many throughout the course of this and want them to know what they’ve meant to us because we don’t even know who they all are and don’t know how else to tell them,” Ray said.

“It was just incredible, the love and support shown that day, ironically on Valentine’s Day, and we thank all for it.”

Madeline said Valentine's Day feels like another birthday for her — she feels like God gave her another chance at life.