For Sakura Tafoya, it started with a header.

The Santa Fe girl and her family were playing soccer on a fall day in 2021. Sakura, then 4, tried out a move she’d seen other kids do: hitting the ball with her head.

Minutes after trying the trick, however, she was out of sorts. She fell down and struggled to get back to her feet. She couldn’t swallow. Her words slurred.

Her father, Jared Tafoya, remembers thinking, “OK, this isn’t right.”

Someone in the family called 911. An ambulance rushed Sakura to the hospital, where initial scans showed the damage brought on by the header: a pool of blood on one side of her brain.

Sakura’s brain is home to cerebral cavernous malformations, or clusters of blood vessels prone to leaking that can cause mild to debilitating neurological issues like seizu

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