Dave and I are always thinking….thinking about brain aneurysms. They have been a part of our daily lives since 2006. We raise money, we produce print pieces, Dave creates banners and maintains all of our Facebook posts. I do Instagram and Twitter posts and maintain the website. We help with the monthly support group and we’re always trying to raise awareness for brain aneurysms.
So, it was odd when after our first real vacation in five years, I realized that we never discussed brain aneurysms in that three week period. I think the only time I thought about my aneurysms was on the flights, but for the most part…it was a three-week break from brain aneurysms.
At a beautiful waterfall in Scotland
It was a very welcome break and one we needed to recharge and discover the world outside of our little Maine bubble. And we loved it! It wasn’t until the last week of the trip we even turned on a TV and it wasn’t to a news channel but local UK home & garden programming.
Because we were gone last month, we missed last month’s brain aneurysm support group meeting. Tonight we attended as usual and welcomed some new faces. I’m again reminded at the important work we are doing. And I’m also reminded that what’s most important to us (Dave and I) is the human contact and helping others…not the money. Yes, the money is important and it’s helping to fund important research, pay for event costs, and student scholarships, but it’s that one-on-one support and comfort we can give to others that is certainly the most rewarding.
The break was great and it was needed, but I’m pleased with how Dave and I are spending a good deal of our time…helping others when and where we can.
Six years ago next week, we said goodbye to my sister Dori after she suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm on Mother’s Day and there was no hope for recovery. The Mother’s Day & Memorial Day holidays always bring it all back for me.
Dori was the only immediate family member to come & visit me in Maine since I moved here in 2000. Two of those trips were for fun and two of the other trips were for MY brain aneurysms. During one of those trips she left a hair barrette behind when staying at our house. I remember letting her know she had left it and asked her if she wanted it mailed back. She told me to keep it.
One of Dori’s garden fairies
Well, I’m so glad I DID keep it. I realized this week It’s one of the very few things of Dori’s that I have. I asked for one of her garden fairies at her memorial service and I set it out each year. I knew she loved these beautiful statues so there certainly is a sentimental attachment to them. But how can a simple plastic & metal hair barrette fill me with emotions?
The barrette
This barrette meant nothing to Dori. She used it and it held her long hair. That’s it. And I’m pretty sure when I discovered the barrette in our guest room that it held a strand or two of her hair. It’s ironic since the last time I saw her was in the hospital and all of her hair had been shaved off for surgery to insert a drain.
I’d prefer to remember her with that long thick hair and, ever so slowly, the painful memories of seeing her in the hospital are being replaced with happier, healthier ones and I DO wear that barrette.
Dori helping me with my veil on my wedding day – 2010
The Latin saying Carpe diem means seize the day or live each day to the fullest.
Do I Carpe diem? If I’m honest, no I don’t. Being a double brain aneurysm survivor, I SHOULD seize each day, but I don’t. Am I grateful? Of course, I am. Do I wake up each morning and think “I am so grateful and blessed to be here”? No, I do not. I should…but I don’t. And those people who say they DO wake up each morning and actually think about how blessed they are, the skeptic in me thinks, “Really?”
MY first thoughts every morning are that I’m very tired, or my back or head aches, or that I slept far too long on my left side, which is a bad thing because of where my craniotomy is. No, my first thought usually isn’t how grateful I am.
I wish I could live each day to it’s fullest and feel grateful every day. Although I am one of the fortunate ones who still can, I need to work to pay the bills and secure good health insurance. I think more about those things. And I do more work than Carping that diem.
What I DO think about every day is brain aneurysms. How can I not? I think about my own aneurysms and the issues I still face. I think about the paths people’s lives, not just mine, have been forced to take as a result of brain aneurysms.
The parents who has lost a child. The husband who has lost a wife. The child who has lost a mother. All of those people I have met and they are a part of my life now due to our shared experiences of losing a loved one to a brain aneurysm.
Brain aneurysm survivors are also a part of my life. We share a bond. We share our fears. We share our frustrations and scars with one another.
I’m not crazy about the month of October, so I’m always happy when I make it through the month. It’s VERY stressful at work in October and my family history has many sad occasions and memories that have happened in October. I suppose I should be grateful the month goes by in a snap…suddenly it’s November. It’s cold. All of the colorful leaves have fallen off the trees. One of these years, I WILL get to the mountains of Maine, stay in a hill-top cabin and view the fall foliage. Something I have yet to do since moving here in 2000.
September is the month when I FEEL the most grateful for being alive and being able to share my brain aneurysm story and help anyone I can. It’s the month chosen for our annual walk and run to honor the lives of two beautiful young women taken far too soon by ruptured brain aneurysms.
Then that pesky cynic within me thinks…I’m pretty sure no one I know would have organized a walk or run in MY honor. That’s how loved and adored these two young women were and how many friends they had. I couldn’t even get one person to visit me at home during both of my recovery periods….which were 6 and 3 months respectively. Yeah…I’m pretty sure I would have still remained just part of the statistics had I not survived. Which makes MY survival even more difficult to take. Why did these two young, vibrant, popular women have to die and I’m still here? I guess it’s to share my story and theirs. Lucky me? I’m grateful? Yeah…sometime’s it’s very difficult to feel that.
BEING grateful every day is a given in my case. If I wake up…yeah, that’s good! FEELING grateful is a whole other animal and it hits me at moments, rather than an every day thought.
I remember feeling grateful at the end of October when my devoted husband and I pulled into the driveway after two weeks in the hospital after my rupture in 2006. Although I wouldn’t return to work for another six months, it was a relief to be home. I was grateful to see the inside of the house I had come to love and to pet my kitty cats again.
I was overcome with emotion that following spring when I walked out to my garden for the first time and it hit me that things were starting to come alive again, as they do every year and that I was grateful, lucky, and blessed to be able to see my garden again. To smell the wet soil. Feel the wind on my face. Yes….I WAS grateful and very emotional as a result. It could have all ended in early October for me.
I feel grateful every September during our annual photograph of brain aneurysm survivors at the KAT-Walk & Karo-5k. I am grateful to be alive and to share this photo with other survivors from all over the state of Maine, New England and the country. I FEEL those moments tremendously.
It’s far too easy to assume someone who survived a life-threatening illness or medical emergency is grateful and lives each day to the fullest. Many don’t have the luxury to do so. Many have such horrible deficits that just living each hour is a struggle. Do they have time or the capacity to even THINK about being grateful? I doubt it.
Without even knowing it, I do believe I am grateful on a daily basis. I can rattle off a list of the things I am grateful for. It’s that seizing the day thing I still have to work on. I’m very tired.
10 years ago today, my life changed when an 11mm (almost 1/2″ in size) brain aneurysm ruptured around 4:30 in the morning. Happy 10th Annie-versary to Me! That’s what brain aneurysm survivors call the anniversary of the day they found out they had a brain aneurysm, the day they had their surgery, or the day it ruptured. Each year a survivor is alive is a celebration and one that should be marked in some fashion. After losing my sister and my husband’s niece to sudden ruptured, and undetected brain aneurysms, I know all too well the horrific, and sudden toll this silent killer can take on families.
Last week I was lucky enough to take part in a brain aneurysm survivor’s breakfast in New York City leading up to the Cerebral Affair Gala that same night. Both events were hosted by two of the biggest players in the brain aneurysm awareness community: The Lisa Colagrossi Foundation and The Joe Niekro Foundation. As with our support group in Portland each month, the stories survivors tell are remarkable, heartbreaking, and inspiring all at the same time. Everyone’s story is different. Everyone’s brain aneurysm is different. And everyone’s struggle is different. However, we all share the same fears and anxiety that come with surviving. Why did I survive when countless other’s did not? Is the headache I have right now a symptom of another rupture? If I had one aneurysm, is it a certainty I’ll get another one?
Some of the survivors & their family members who attended the survivors round-table and breakfast.
The survivor’s breakfast was a profound reminder of just how important it is that survivors tell their stories again and again to everyone and anyone who will listen. You never now when YOUR story will resonate with one person and one life could be saved.
I HAD heard the terms “brain aneurysm” prior to my rupture in 2006, but I had no idea it could be hereditary in some cases and I had no idea the damage it could do. I vaguely remember the ER doctor coming in and asking me if anyone in my family has a brain aneurysm. I THINK I may have said “yes” because my cousin Debbie had just gone through coiling a few years prior and I know my cousin Tim had suffered a rupture.
When the doctor said I had a ruptured brain aneurysm that was bleeding, I remember thinking “Well, that can’t be good.” I’m one of the lucky ones to even have any knowledge and memory of those events and discussions. For many, the damage with the initial rupture is too great to overcome. I am still able to work the job I left for six months to recover back in 2006. I am still able to drive. Many are not.
My deficits are embarrassingly minor compared to others. Fatigue lasted a LONG time. Maybe years. I was lucky enough to NOT have major headaches for long periods of time after my rupture but bending over at certain angles still causes discomfort. I can’t say it’s pain, but it isn’t pleasant. And coughing still causes discomfort and my brain can get easily over stimulated with visual or vocal clutter.
Because my rupture was coiled, I didn’t have any outward indication of surviving a brain injury unlike the craniotomy I endured in 2014 for a second un-ruptured brain aneurysm. I think that’s why people can assume you’re fine. Outwardly, you DO look fine, but inwardly, we are suffering and struggling and only another survivor can understand that.
The 2nd brain aneurysm I had was clipped and after my last angiogram, it appears to have completely gone away. The first one that ruptured 10 years ago this morning, is STILL giving me issues. The 16 platinum coils inserted into it started to compact after five years, then four more coils were added and a stent was inserted to allow the blood to flow PAST the aneurysm instead of into it. However, there is still a little remnant of blood between the neck and the stent. It’s the annie that won’t go away.
Some days I still struggle with the not knowing. I truly hate the “watch and wait” option. Been there, still doing that. But this bugger is not an “easy fix” at this point. If it starts to enlarge or change shape, more coils could be in order. Sure, why not! Let’s load me up with more metal. 20 coils, a stent, and a clip. My Brain Bling!
As I was reminded during the survivor’s breakfast last week in NYC, I need to remember how blessed I am and that I should continue to be grateful. I AM grateful and I know I am blessed, but I have also been devastated by brain aneurysms in losing my sister, leaving a 15-year old son behind. I’m devastated by Dave’s niece Kim dying at the far-too young age of 32 and being found by her mother. No one should have to endure that and it broke my heart.
If my long, often soap-boxy blog can help just one person and educate anyone about brain aneurysms, then I am doing something right. I am doing something positive and I am doing SOMETHING to help shed light on the deadly consequences of ignoring symptoms that could kill you or a loved one.
I suppose God left ME here to be one of the voices for those who aren’t with us anymore. It is my honor to do so.
Thank you to all of those people who supported me during that time I was in the hospital 10 years ago and the following months of initial recovery. I couldn’t have done any of it without my Maine man, however. He’s my rock, my chauffeur, my nurse, my sounding board, and my love. I am blessed to have had him in my life 10 years ago to help save me.
