Good Morning World! It is simply a glorious morning with clouds and sun and Carolina Blue skies. Yes, the same color as the team as a matter of fact, that would be UNC Chapel Hill. That’s the uni that Michael Jordan played both basketball and baseball I do believe. Although I might be wrong about the baseball, absolutely correct me if I’m wrong, I never mind learning something new.
Being wrong and being corrected are part of life, especially after a ruptured aneurysm. Seems we have to start learning all over again. Being willing to learn is advantageous, loving to learn is priceless. Being a bit out from my rupture, I’ve learned a lot. I learned to make sense of words in a book, I learned to not walk like a drunken sailor, tricks to keep my stutter at bay and even this year I learned if I wear my Dad’s old Timex with the stretch band, it stops my tremor. Of course none of this was easy, except using the Timex, but I’m like an old dog with a bone that won’t let it go. Speech Therapy was more exhausting than PT the first three times I was in it. The last time wasn’t so bad thankfully since I had to drive pretty far and through some rerouting of the road. I think she went easy on me.
The drive to Cherryville used to be fairly straight, easy smeasy 30 minutes and I was at the building! It’s near where we get our coffee beans so I knew where it was. First day I parked in the wrong parking lot but it was all good, found the office from some nice folks. Then one week the State DOT came and messed up the route backing up traffic putting in a round about so it became a 45 minutes drive due to traffic back ups. Then they put in another and for some reason a third. It was a hot mess and needed a lot of focusing on who was going where. So I showed up tired, stuttering and back then tremor goes into both hands and right eye twitching. Bless the ST who turned off all the light she could, played some soft music, etc. The day the kids were screaming some with delight and some with unhappiness was pretty hard on me. They have a lot of STs for the little ones. I had my ear thingys that block noise and I can listen to my music. Also can take and send calls but I’m always forgetting how to do that and press the wrong button.
Let’s get back to the roundabouts. To me they are exactly like a rupture and my brain had to create roundabouts to get the messengers working. I think but don’t know that this is also what happens to those of us who get either a craniotomy or an endovascular procedure done on an unruptured aneurysm simply because blood flow is rerouted, thus creating a round about. It’s really important that we keep hydrated and eat protein, rest and exercise both our bodies and our brains. Walking is a great way to exercise, please try a 20 minute walk if you can. It’s okay to work up to it, try a flat level place at first if you can. I am fortunate we have several acres and I walk with the dogs in their 2 ½ acres, it’s definitely not flat so I take breaks if needed. For brain exercising, try the multitude of games out there, color, paint, musical instruments, take up a new or old hobby. Most recently I read that if we have brain damage at our corpus callosum, it’s good to use our non dominant hand to help the messengers find a new route. The author suggests coloring or writing with the non dominant hand at first and then building up to different skills. I know I can hammer and use and ax with my left hand, been doing that for years, switching back and forth because my right arm would get tired when I was a teen and Dad had us chopping firewood. Little did I know that I was becoming more reliant on my left due to a pinched nerve until it was diagnosed. I am not going to chop firewood yet we need a firewood shed to store it in and thankfully we aren’t reliant on it for heat at this place, even if the power goes out. Mitch came and installed a Generac so now we will have both water and heat when we lose power. I am super excited about it. I’m also super excited about welcoming our new members so lets get to it, shall we?
Starting us off this week is @Monica77 up in Iowa. Monica shares she had a horrendous migraine, waking up with it at 0130, tried to get to the bathroom and lost control of her bladder and crawled to the toilet. She then layed in a warm shower for a few hours and still wasn’t feeling better. Monica had to call in as she couldn’t get to work with the migraine. She tried to sleep and couldn’t so she was able to get herself to the clinic behind the hospital as she couldn’t get a hold of anyone. The clinic sent her to the ER because they didn’t want to miss anything. Monica had labs and a CT scan, gave her medication and was about to send her home. Doctor comes in and says she has a 7.7 cm brain aneurysm and was scanning her again with contrast. She was eventually flown to a trauma 1 hospital in Iowa City and had her endovascular procedure. Monica shares she is “very much thankful to be alive”. However, she is experiencing horrendous headaches, loud sounds and tired from broken sleep having to take meds every four hours. She’s missing her old self, trying to be kind to herself but it isn’t easy. She loves her two little dachshunds and is missing loud music and loud football games. Come talk to us Monica, just start a new topic under General tab, we will share some things that have helped us.
@KathyL is up and over in Utah. Kathy has ADPKD (Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease, yes I looked it up). Kathy is hopefully working towards a kidney transplant. Having the PKD 1 gene, she’s found herself with a 3x4mm wide neck ACOM aneurysm that needs to be treated before she can have the kidney transplant. She’s trying to decide treatment and needs to understand future follow up in terms of imaging, anticoagulation, etc. Anything and everything that would make her kidney treatment more risky. Oh my that’s a lot on your plate Kathy! Come talk to us under the General tab and we can share what treatments we’ve had and the medicine we are required to take afterwards. Please make sure your neuro specialists talks to your other specialists to see which would be the best approach. I think they really need to discuss this together and in detail.
@Gio is over in Greece. George is the husband and his wife is the patient. He’s on the ball and posted this Clipping surgery in 3 days for 44 years old female! Please, please help him and his wife out! I truly believe a few minutes helping others is good for us.
@Sylvie is out west in CA and was diagnosed with an intracranial (brain) aneurysm. Sylvia shares she’s 45. When she was 16, her father died at the age of 41 from a ruptured aneurysm. She’s got two adult kids, a son who is 25 and a daughter 19. Sylvie, I imagine lots of things running through your head right now. We are here for you! Please start a new topic under the General or Support tab so we can offer our support.
@Sparky2 is down under in Queensland Australia. Sparky2 shares there was an incidental find of a large aneurysm on the right carotid artery. Had a craniotomy to clip and ruptured during the procedure. Also shares that the artery not clamped thankfully. Which makes me very curious and I’d like to read more of your journey. The only way we can do that is if you start a new topic under General tab.
Finishing us off for this week, we get to welcome @una1021 in Thailand. Nami was having bad headaches, MRI found an aneurysm and she had an endovascular procedure recently. Nami is in recovery right now. She shares she’s a homeschool Mom of two, loves strength training and Pilates as well as making things at home. Welcome and come talk to us!
Remember y’all we normally use the General tab for most everything. Just click on General and then click the + sign to start a new topic. If you see a topic that you want to share some experience, etc jump right in, watch for the date it started. I’m supposed to close the old ones and I’m horrendously behind on that. If you post in the wrong place, I just put it in the correct place, no worries.
Now to our members a bit of a scolding - I should never be the only one responding to a topic. In fact, I’m really not supposed to respond to any as your Moderator. Of course I’m a rule breaker and the powers that be get over it and are rather very kind about it. But please take a few minutes to help each other. It is what we are all about. Doesn’t matter if you’ve had a craniotomy, endovascular procedure or on the W and W list, please take a few minutes of your time to reach out. Support goes a long way here and it should never, ever be one sided.
Now I get to admit my errors with great apologies. I have allowed a couple of topics to go well off topic and I shouldn’t have done that. I’m off to go fix it and I do whole heartedly apologize and hope they get back on the right track. I am not perfect and I do things wrong, right now it seems I’m doing more wrong than right and I’m embarrassed and profusely or is it profoundly sorry.
That’s it for this week. Remember either myself @Moltroub or the very kind and patient folks that make up @ModSupport are here to help if you’ve got problems navigating around the site. Just send us a PM, including both as we are in different time zones and I’m only on in the mornings. Have a great week everyone! Remember to hydrate, eat protein, rest, breathe and exercise as able keeps us going. Also don’t forget to hug someone you love to increase your feel good hormones.
Hugs to all y’all!
