PORTLAND, Ore. -- Just looking at her, you'd hardly know Chelsee Caskey spent two months in the hospital, had to re-learn how to walk and is still healing from a stroke. Background: Driver sent to prison

Instead, you'd notice her smile, her love for others and her excitement over graduating from Lincoln High School.

"It's been a complicated year," said Caskey. "A lot of highs, lows . . . mixed emotions."

Last August, Caskey was running the "Hood to Coast" relay, when police said 20-year-old Chrystal Meyer, who was high on meth, struck the 18-year-old along Highway 30 near Scappoose. Caskey suffered a broken leg, punctured lung and eventually a stroke.

Friend Kelly Hall said between tears, "I got the call and I couldn't believe the sweetest most important person I could ever meet was in the hospital . . . I'm just really glad she made it. I knew she would because there's no one stronger than my best friend."

The road to recovery for Caskey has been long. After leaving the hospital, she spent weeks in a wheel chair, before enduring hours of painful, physical therapy to learn how to walk again. She said it was one of the hardest things she'd ever done, but knew the outcome of her accident could have been drastically different.

"Number one... God," said Caskey, when asked how she survived. "That's the reason I'm alive . . . He protected me, then the doctors, the nurses."

Caskey said the transition following her accident was more than physical. She said it took a toll on her emotionally and mentally. "You go through something so traumatic, but then you have to get back into your world and put all the pieces back together," she said.

As far as high school goes, the last piece for Caskey will fall into place on Friday, when she graduates.

"It's going to be such an amazing moment and it's going to be awesome just to have that diploma in my hand," she said.

Caskey plans to spend the summer with friends, followed by a year at a Christian college in Washington. She said she's forgiven Meyer, who was serving a 5-year sentence for DUII and assault.