Category: Brain Aneurysm

The 5-Month Mark

Published on by heiditeaLeave a comment

Five months ago this morning, my brain aneurysm was clipped. After two nights in the hospital, I spent 8 weeks recovering then was back at work. The report so far is good and I think I’m doing well. I know I still have a ways to go and the upcoming months will begin to test my fatigue and stamina as work efforts will increase.

But, until that happens, the progress is good considering everything that could have happened. Fatigue, both mental and physical is still an issue and I cannot determine exactly which type of effort tires me out more. Grocery shopping is a chore. I used to go grocery shopping after work, but have yet to do that since January. Working a full day and driving 60 miles is still difficult and if I were to add groceries to that, I fear my attention to driving would be severely diminished. As a result I wait until the weekends, and usually give myself a day to rest after the work week on Saturday, then shop on Sundays. So far that seems to be working.

20140616-224105.jpgMy incision is basically invisible. I can feel where it is and it’s obvious where the incision was made due to where my hair was shaved, but it’s doing good. I’m still a little self-conscious of the dent at the side of my eye and the visible screws underneath my skin on the left side of my forehead, but I’d rather have that small issue than have to go through another rupture. There….so shut up about it Heidi!

20140616-224326.jpgNow, my hair growth from the shaved area is taking its sweet-ass time growing in, which is frustrating still. At 5 months it has grown a whopping 2″. At least it isn’t sticking up quite as bad as it had and I can finally dry it so it lays flat. Progress, but still weird to deal with. My next cut may be short, with some color. I hate my hair short, but it’ll grow back (maybe!).

Bending over too much and lifting heavy things are exhausting and I think…THINK the feeling in my scalp is finally starting to come back. The only reason I’m starting to think that is that my scalp is hurting now. It’s not an ache-type of pain, but if I scratch, touch, or brush that part of my scalp where the skin was peeled back, it feels tender and almost like little needles, lightly pricking my head. I’m hoping that feeling is all of the nerves reconnecting where they were cut. It was a large area that was cut for the incision and peeled back, so there is a lot of reconnection that needs to occur.

I’ve been told by two doctors that it will probably take a good year before I feel back to “normal”, whatever normal is now. So that means a tiring fall and winter. Goody! But I’m still here.

The Old Two-Day Meeting Test

Published on by heiditea1 Comment

Well, nothing like an hour and a half drive and two full days of meetings to test one’s fatigue and stamina!

I had to attend a two day conference where just getting there was a first test. Driving an hour and a half away was the longest I have driven along since my surgery. It’s an easy drive, but one must concentrate on staying focused while driving. I did…I arrived…I was tired. I would have preferred to close my eyes for 15 minutes, but the agenda would wait for no one.

Paying attention, listening, interacting, taken notes, and just plain old thinking took their toll on me both days. We have very few meaningful breaks where I could rest properly and one day we worked through lunch while we ate, so I had not chance to leave and rest. I made the drive home and promptly just wanted to settle into a hot tub and soak my tension away – which I did!

I don’t expect anyone to understand what I’m going through and I certainly hope no one thought I was bored or falling asleep those few times I actually had to close my eyes during the meetings, but I had to take care of ME. I’m only a little over four months about. I may look fine, but I still have my days and times when it’s a struggle.

Well, at least I look better than I did four months ago! 🙂

 

Here it is!

Published on by heiditea2 Comments

announcement_ICONMy NEW & hopefully IMPROVED Brain Blog is now up and running. I’ve been working on it during my lunch hour and in the evenings to get all of the previous blog entries converted to WordPress. Not because I wanted to, but because GoDaddy kind of forced me to. 😦   Booo….although I think it looks very nice and should be easier to read and follow.

I’m still playing with it and learning how to use WordPress. I know WordPress is the gold standard for blog programs, and there are a lot of things it does that I still haven’t grasped but I’m getting there.

If you read my blog, please let me know. I never know until I ask if people are reading it as only about two or three people every comment.

I hope the blog has helped anyone who has had a brain aneurysm or knows someone who has one. It’s meant to be educational, but helping in letting survivors know they’re not alone in the feelings and frustrations they’re going through. Our aneurysms may all be different sizes and in different locations from one another, but many of the symptoms and after-effects are very similar.

Stay strong!

It Has Been A Week

Published on by heiditeaLeave a comment

I have been close to tears about five times this week. None of these times actually produced tears, mostly because two of the times were at work, so I really kept it in, but the other times certainly could have produced tears….but nothing.

Since my brain aneurysm rupture in 2006 I noticed whatever mechanism within my brain that triggers tears, just isn’t the same. I would feel sad about something, and knew I would normally be crying over it, but the tears would not come. I’d be curious to know if any other brain aneurysm survivors have experienced the same thing. However, when those tears DO start flowing it’s difficult for me to shut them off and they completely drain my body and brain of any needed functionality.

Tonight I opened that valve and the tears are flowing. This Sunday is Mother’s Day. Normally a happy occasion for families to celebrate their moms with gifts and spend time with mother’s, granddaughters and grandmother’s. Unfortunately, for my family, it’s a sad occasion and doubly so this year. No, my mother hasn’t left us, but both my sisters have. So not only has a mother lost two daughters, but I’ve lost both my sisters and my niece and nephew have lost their mothers.

My sister Dori had a massive ruptured brain aneurysm ON Mother’s Day in 2012. My husband and I were in London, England when we found out. We cut our trip short to join my family in a two-week, hopeful vigil praying for a miracle that never happened. Technically, we had already lost her on Mother’s Day. I don’t know how my mother or my sister’s son, can ever replace that memory. I know I can’t. Because she died of a brain aneurysm, I’m also tormented by my own demons about how she was misdiagnosed and how I should have pushed her more to insist the Dr’s look closer. Having the “urgent care” president where she was treated admit in a letter, after her death, that aneurysm signs were missed, makes it even more heart wrenching.

My “Family” mailbox in my Email now only consists of my husband and my niece. No other relative emails me. In fact I didn’t even know my cousin’s husband had died because she didn’t email me and none of her brother’s or sisters did. I miss my emails from Dori and Rhonda and Mom. Since mom had to switch to a laptop from WebTV, she hasn’t been able to understand and grasp using a computer, so we no longer have that convenient form of communication. She doesn’t call me, due to the cost, but I call her two times a week. And as I sit here typing this, I am bawling and feeling horribly pain in my head, that is just short of 4-months out of open brain surgery to repair my 2nd aneurysm.

Searing pain around the side of my head that is made worse by the stress of crying…and I can’t stop. I want, and desperately need a day off of work to get some sleep and rest, but there are meetings I must attend. Why I’m asked to attend some of these meetings, when my ideas and recommendations are met with a giant eye-roll and dismissed, is something I don’t understand. Even though I was apart of developing the program that’s being discussed and am very familiar with how it works, being treated that way in front of many others (for a 2nd time) can lead to tears, but I held it together…until now. So on top of grieving again for my sister, I’m dealing with being dismissed at work and just getting there on a daily basis while I’m still recovering.

Then there is my darling niece who will have to endure her first Mother’s Day without her mom because my other sister Rhonda died just 4 months ago. My poor mother has lost two daughters and I’m all she’s got left. And even SHE is having issues right now with horrible pain in her back, which brings back many memories of my sister Dori. She had horrible back pain for months before finally having surgery a few weeks before her death and I’d talk to her on the phone as she was in that pain and knew she had been crying due to that pain.

So when I hear my 87-year old mother talk about getting to the point where the pain makes her cry, how can I NOT think about my sister. I don’t know what to do to help my mom when she’s in NY and I’m in Maine. She’s been to two doctor’s and they’ve given her patches and some meds and told her to stop lifting things. Great. That’s great advice…but do they know what is actually wrong? I doubt it.

So, that crying thing is very difficult. We’re told it’s good to cry every once in awhile to get it out of your system….they say it’s a “good cry”. Well, for me, a cry is never good. My head feels like the skin and muscles are being pulled away from my brain right now. And it won’t settle down, until I settle down. Poor Dave has tried to console me, but I don’t even know what I need. I guess a “good cry” and venting in my blog will have to suffice for now even though I know I won’t feel any better physically or mentally afterwards.