Category: Support

KAT-Walk and Karo-5K Run for Maine Brain Aneurysm Awareness

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WHEN: Saturday, September 7, 2013
WHERE: Portland, Maine
KAT-Walk and Karo-5K for Maine Brain Aneurysm Awareness

Lace up your walking and running shoes and join us for the KAT-Walk & Karo-5K for Maine Brain Aneurysm Awareness. This annual event benefits the Brain Aneurysm Foundation in their efforts to support early detection, education, fund research and create awareness about brain aneurysms.

This year’s event will be held on Saturday, September 7th, 2013, along the Back Cove Boulevard in Portland, Maine. The event starts at 11:30 a.m. on the pathway across from the Hannaford Plaza and the walk & run will take place at 1 p.m. The whole family is invited for a leisurely walk or to enter the timed 5K run. This will be a special day to remember and honor loved ones lost to or having survived a brain aneurysm.

September is Maine Brain Aneurysm Awareness Month. Join us as we “share our tears, remember with love, walk & run to honor”those families affected by this silent killer and help save lives!

For more information:
VISIT: MaineBA.org  |  LIKE: on Facebook  |  FOLLOW: on Twitter

Annual Angiogram

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Last week was my annual angiogram to check on my large, 20-coiled annie and see how the smaller aneurysm that was discovered in 2011 is coming long.

As usual, it’s an apprehensive time. Even though I have felt fine, one just never knows if the coils have compressed again or the size and shape of either aneurysm has dramatically changed…even though it has only been one year since my last checkup.

Thankfully, at the follow-up appointment two days later, Dr. Ecker said the large aneurysm looks very good. The stent and additional coils that were added two years ago are doing their job…keeping blood from getting back into the aneurysm. He also said there were no NEW aneurysms anywhere else. Great news.

The smaller aneurysm has grown a little bit. It’s not a cause for alarm…yet, but the fact I’ve already ruptured once and it’s at an odd spot on the artery AND has a wide neck indicates to the doc we’ll have to start considering doing something about it. Not immediately, but at some point….while I’m still relatively young – and that’s not much longer! LOL

Even though coiling is the least invasive procedure, I have since learned there CAN be complications and it needs to be monitored more frequently. Clipping is far more invasive, and in my mind more dangerous, but it’s a far more permanent treatment. I need to do more research and ask some people, but I’m starting to lean more in that direction. I could care less about a scare on my head, but it’s the danger involved in the procedure and the recovery period afterwards should there be any complications during the process that concern me.

As usual, the staff in the Maine Medical Center radiology & neuro-endovascular teams were top notch and provided great care. We had a long wait as there was an emergency stroke case that was brought in that needed Dr. Ecker’s care, but everyone was great and I had no residual pain or major discomfort after the procedure. Thank you everyone! Here’s hoping I don’t see any of you for awhile!

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Dance For Awareness

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The Dance for Brain Aneurysm Awareness event was held last Saturday at the Legion in Westbrook, Maine. Over 200 people attended and it’s believed over $4,000 was raised. It was the first event of this type that the Maine Brain Aneurysm Awareness group has held, and by all accounts, it was a success!

Dave and I arrived early to help set up. One of the nice things about this indoor event was we didn’t have to deal with gusty winds like we do at the walk/run in September. It was a joy to not have to weight everything down and set up tents to protect us from the elements. As a result, setup went fairly quickly.

What took more time was setting up all of the wonderful items that were collected for the Chinese and Silent auctions. Some truly wonderful gift baskets, artwork, and gift cards made for some interesting bidding wars throughout the evening. I won a beautiful painting of a door with two plantings on either side of the entrance. It spoke to me when I first saw it.

Our DJ, Gloria played and sang music from many eras and genres. She pretty much had something for everyone to dance to. Once the lights were turned down, many people took to the floor and boogied. Since I was suffering from pleurisy, I was showing restraint and only did two slow dances with Dave all night. That was about my speed. LOL

The date for the dance was set based on the birthdays of Kim Tudor (Dave’s niece) and Karolina Kurka. Last weekend just happen to fall in between both their birthdays, so it seemed an appropriate time to honor them both, as well as bring to light more awareness and understanding of brain aneurysms, and hopefully help any other families in the area who may have been touched by aneurysms. A few new people did show up and some members of the medical community came, which was truly wonderful!

As Kim’s mother had a difficult time with this event being held so close to Kim’s birthday, I was reminded of how fresh and painful these types of losses can be. The anniversary of my sister’s death is looming ever closer in May and next month I will be having my
aneurysms checked yet again with an angiogram.

But I am very thankful for this band of volunteers and their families who are making the healing less painful and showing us that we can get through this as a community. The unfortunate camaraderie we share is a comfort and the friends I’ve made through this tragedy have truly touched me.

Keep an eye on the MaineBA.org website for more photos of the event once we’re able to gather them all.

Christmas Time

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Today, I turned another year older. It was a good day. I got some wonderful gifts and enjoyed a lovely dinner out with friends, which I desparately needed. Not the dinner, but the fun with friends.

Since losing Dori at the end of May, I’ve basically been running on fumes. Well, that and food. I’ve gained so much weight. Maybe I thought if I comforted myself with comfort food, it would some how makes things feel better. I think the only void food has filled is my waistline, hips and thighs. It certainly hasn’t had any kind of “healing” per say, but it helped at that moment I guess.

Now that I’m finally getting some time off of work, it’s all hitting me. Everything reminds me of Dori. Just as it was that first Christmas after we lost Kim, there are so many memories and items that trigger those memories…the only difference is that I knew Dori all of my life, where I had only known Kim the last 10 years of her life. Still a long time to miss her horribly, but not nearly the number of memories I have with Dori.

Childhood memories of Christmas’s spend with Dori in our bedroom we shared growing up and of singing carols later in life to shared moments of joy and sadness within our own family over the years. We lost our father in 1994…my brother-in-law was killed two months before Christmas and a month before his daughter was to become a year old. All very bittersweet holidays, but we got through them.

Each Christmas card we receive this year is filled with the usual holiday greetings of peace and good health, then I’m thrown by a mention of Dori. It’s not that I’m trying to forget her, it’s just taking me by surprise in these cards and it brings up the sad reminder that she’s no longer with us and reminds me especially, that it was a damn brain aneurysm that caused it.

I won’t be able to watch A CHRISTMAS STORY this year. Too many memories of watching that and making references to it. Maybe next year. I won’t be watching LOVE ACTUALLY either. Amongst all the funny story lines in the moving, there is also one that is quite sad and I’m not sure I want to deal with it just now. Maybe next year. I’m not even sure about National Lampoon’s CHRISTMAS VACATION. Dori and I saw that in the movie theater when it first came out. We weren’t that old, but found ourselves extremely annoyed by all the rude teenagers in the sold-out theater. LOL

I AM listening to Christmas carols and enjoying that. I know Dori loved carols and it doesn’t make me sad, except to hear THE BELL THAT COULDN’T JINGLE because I know she loved that song and JESU is hard to listen to because she used to play that on the piano.

Dave and I are not going to NY for Christmas this year, like we did last year. The family Christmas I craved last year was wonderful and a memory I’ll always cherise because it was the last time I saw Dori in person. The gifts for family back in NY were packed and sent back home. I usually made all of those arrangements with Dori and we always shared a ton of emails back and forth on what to get everyone and sending lists back and forth. Not much list swapping going on this year and we’re all fine with that. It will be a simple, quiet Christmas this year. It just has to be.

As I was helping Dave find some gift bags, I ran across many of the gift bags we were given last year and saw many bags with Dori’s handwriting on them. Again…another sad, and unexpecteed reminder. I know the day will come when that sort of thing will make me smile rather than feel sad, but for this year, the sadness will prevail. It has to….we’re all still greiving. It’s a part of the damn process. Another loss…another brain aneurysm.

I keep waiting for a sign from Dori to snap out of it, stop eating crap, and take better care of myself, but she and I both know that it’s hard to lose a loved one and it’s harder for those left behind to adjust to life again. Perhaps the new year will yield better results for my health and there will be no more issues with my own brain aneurysms. I still have to live with those on a daily basis. Lately, I don’t want anything to do with aneurysms, or talking about them, but I know opening up about the strain, stress and ordeals with others is helpful. I’m not sure how helpful this blog entry will be for anyone  but I needed to get it out, so thank you for allowing me the space and bandwidth to do so.

My hope for anyone whose life has been effected by a brain aneurysm finds comfort, guidance, and strength for the New Year. I know I’ll be asking God for all of the above for my own family. God Bless and Merry Christmas.