I collapsed in November from an aneurysm, in the shower of all places. I woke up paralyzed on the left side, but I knew immediately what had happened to me. My father died in 1997 of a ruptured berry aneurysm. I crawled to the phone, which was at the other end of my house, called an ambulance and told them I thought I had had a stroke. It took 4 horrible days for the hospital to find the aneurysm. When they found it I got worse news, there is not a single Doctor in my area that will operate on aneurysms. Therefore I was flown to UAB in Birmingham. I have to say the staff and facility at UAB are outstanding.
I was checked out and put in ICU to await surgery. The night before my scheduled clipping I had a second bleed. I developed hydrocephalus and had a grand mal seizure as well as at least one smaller seizure. I was at that point taken into surgery for an emergency coiling. Apparently because of the second bleed it made more sense to do the coiling than the clipping. I had some further problems with the hydrocephalus and a week later had another surgery to install a permanant shunt. My aneurysm was a right PICA and was 8mm. After the shunt was put in I spent 4 more days in the hospital and then was sent home. My recovery has gone pretty well. I was not permanently paralyzed from the first episode, I had recovered that before I went to UAB. I had some slight memory problems, but nothing too bad.
I went back up this week for my follow up angiogram. The angio by the way is awful. Bad news: My aneurysm has grown and needs to have more coils added. My Doctor was extremely busy and didn't manage to talk to me more than to say I have to come back in about a month to recoil. My question is has anyone else experienced this and does this mean I have to go through the whole recovery process again. I know it won't be as bad since I can't really develop hydrocephalus again as I have the shunt in place, but is the pain and general recovery the same for a recoil as it was for the original.
I will be honest. I am terrified at this point and then to have to start over I don't know if I can do it. I was just starting to think maybe I could go back to work part-time. My headaches have be constant and tremendous, but still preferable to death. I don't know anyone who has had to deal with anything like this and my husband and I are worried about the future. I have read a lot of posts on this and a couple of other sites and I know that I am lucky to be alive. I had thought that it was over, but now it seems to be just the beginning. Any help or thoughts would be appreciated. Thank you so much and good luck to you all.