Dore Bakouris

A Living Miracle

At 27, life was falling into place for Dore Bakouris. She was newly married, had a 1-year-old son and had just returned to work. Then she started suffering from severe headaches. Given that she had no previous health issues, she went to the emergency room and got a CT scan. Doctors gave her the devastating news that she had a brain tumor.

Within a week, Dore had surgery to remove what was thought to be an egg-sized tumor, but it turned out to be a cavernous angioma—a malformation of blood vessels that had started to bleed, putting pressure on her brain. Doctors said if they had waited another day, they would have lost her. Thankfully Dore survived, but she did lose her right peripheral vision and had cognitive impairments. They discovered later she had also suffered a stroke.

Thankfully Dore had done insurance planning at a young age, given her husband, Steven, was their insurance professional. Dore had disability insurance, which replaced a portion of her income. That meant there wasn’t the financial strain of going from a two-income household to one. She also had critical illness insurance, which paid out a lump sum, due to her having suffered a stroke. This money allowed them to move closer to family. That gave Dore the support she needed, since she could no longer drive and had an active toddler. “This insurance has been a miracle for us,” she says. “It’s helped us in ways I didn’t think were possible.”

Steven adds that people expect something like this to happen when you’re old or to “other” people. “I want to express how important it is to have this kind of planning in place,” he says. “Your ability to generate income is your largest asset, if you can’t work, where does that leave everything else?”

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