Good Morning World! If you happen to live in the U.S.A., how did you do with the 4th of July celebrations? If you’re not in the U.S.A., it was our country’s 250th Anniversary. Since I ruptured, we don’t go to any fireworks displays. Although BH, Ohana and I would sit on the front porch of our first home and we could easily watch the show from the county fairgrounds. Ohana is the first dog I’ve ever had that loved to watch them. Back then I’d have to close my eyes to slow down the ever existing migraines. I rarely got a reprieve from them. When we had to take care of my parents, just Ohana and I would watch them from their front porch. I was bound and determined to reteach my brain to handle bright lights. Still wore earplugs and my folks allowed me to keep the drapes pulled shut. Nina can’t stand the sounds, scares the heck out of her. Where we live now, we could watch them from the front porch but Ohana isn’t as interested in them. Nina doesn’t quite get as upset but we’ve learned to premeditate her. I was surprised there wasn’t as much gun fire as there usually is and the folks who have the cannon didn’t shoot it off this year.
Everything seemed a little off about the celebrations. One would have thought the stores would be full of merchandise pushing the big anniversary, but they weren’t in our area. I like t-shirts but settled for a ball cap, BH has a thing for fountain pens so has a new one. Oddly enough, no one was wishing others a Happy 4th like they usually do. We’re in a very conservative area which adds to the oddness as usually folks are all about it. Things like this always reminds me of Bob Dylan’s 1964 song. https://youtu.be/90WD_ats6eE?is=Tlg1ILUMSkLfp2Ac In case you’re not old enough to know it. BH keeps telling me I’m not 20 anymore.
How’s the heat in your neck of the northern hemisphere? We’ve had a heat dome hanging out over us and I understand so does parts of Europe. Saw something about France having a horrible time of it as the houses don’t have air conditioning for the most part. The article said it had passed England but did it really or was it just coming to the end? Hopefully the heat dome here doesn’t make it across the pond, hate for those folks to have to go through it again.
Which leads to hydration…are you getting tired of me writing about the importance of staying hydrated yet? I bet you might be. However, it’s so very important to keep hydrated and replace electrolytes. One of my nieces just had her 49th birthday. We don’t send gifts but they do get us singing Happy Birthday. My side of the family is much larger than BH’s side. She’s in the radiology field and has been working with cardiology surgeon’s. It’s pretty cool and she even sent me a picture of an iliac on a stick! It’s part of the iliac artery that the surgeon removed to put a stent through. Obviously not how are neurosurgeons do it. Could you imagine them having to cut out a piece of the Circle of Willis or any other area to throw a stent through it just to have to put it back? Yikes! So during the two hour conversation, she tells me about a teenaged boy that came in through the ER. He had been helping his family move, wasn’t feeling well and they told him to stay in the shade while they all went to unload. When they came back, he was unresponsive. 8 hours later, the parents had to give permission to pull the plug. Another boy had been playing soccer and passed out on the field. He is alive but has some brain issues that he will deal with for the rest of his life. They also found out he has a cerebral aneurysm. She said one of the doctors either the neurologist or the neurosurgeon said his brain damage was fairly extensive. My niece suggested they look at Dr. Bruce Perry’s study and she found another, Dr. Lori Cook here https://centerforbrainhealth.org/ I still have to look it over so I’ve not read anything but it does look promising for us.
Make sure you’re actually drinking your glass of water and not just looking at it. Something I always have to remind BH to do, BH loves it when I have to be reminded. If you’re doubting the importance of hydration and our brains take a gander at these: Tips on How to Stay Hydrated And this one will show you foods that help with hydration https://www.cnn.com/2017/09/27/health/benefits-of-water-and-fluids or this Staying Hydrated, Staying Healthy | American Heart Association I couldn’t find an article on hydration on the American Stroke Association site oddly enough. It must be there, somewhere and I’ve not used the correct search words or they’ve hidden it in other articles.
But I did find this article Rebuilding Identity: A critical step in recovery | American Stroke Association which doesn’t talk about hydration but how we identify ourselves. It’s very basic so you’ll need to follow through with some more articles. We may not get specific SAH recovery information but there’s a great benefit to broadening our search into ischemic stroke articles or TBI articles.
I also found this Knowing you have a brain aneurysm may raise anxiety risk, other mental health conditions | American Heart Association which of course is a great reminder for us to use relaxation breathing skills! Doesn’t matter if you’re on the watch and wait list or the SAH list breathing correctly helps reduces anxiety. I’m not going to stop reminding you of that either! I found this Breathing Practices for Stress and Anxiety Reduction: Conceptual Framework of Implementation Guidelines Based on a Systematic Review of the Published Literature - PMC just scroll down if you get overwhelmed with all the information to the end. It does have a lot of information on different breathing styles and did come to the conclusion that you’ll need to practice to get it down. Interestingly, they found looking at the research that to be effective, you have to do it at least for five minutes! So there’s a good tidbit of information I did not know.
Now on to the welcomes!
@KiqibyAbba is in Nigeria. Olubukola shares they had a ruptured brain aneurysm and has been through surgery and is in recovery. Olubukola also shares they are a banker by profession.
@Candy is in Florida has a FMD diagnosis-multifocal and with aneurysms throughout multiple arterial beds. Found this to explain FMD Fibromuscular Dysplasia (FMD): Symptoms & Treatment. If you have issues with the link, I’ll try to find another site.
@roblamma1111 is in Virginia. Robert shares he has had an endovascular procedure. He’s 48 and has been married to his best friend for a few years. He states it seems as it’s literally been one health problem after another. In 2024, he was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer and went straight into hospice care, given oxygen 24/7. After a year and a half, he was still kickin’ discharged from Hospice into Palliative care. After almost dying a few times, he was stabilized. He’s had an aneurysm discovered and had it coiled. Robert shares some things got better right away, some things got better quickly but didn’t stay. He is now getting headaches that aren’t horrible and sometimes he gets a small sharp quick pain. Robert says very loudly since it’s all capitalized that this is scaring him.
Robert had his endovascular (coiling) procedure done at the hospital and says he has no one to call and ask questions to see if everything is okay. He doesn’t know what to do, is afraid he is making himself sicker worrying about everything. Robert is asking for our help and would like to know if his symptoms are normal. Oh and he goes by Bobby, not Robert…. Bobby, use the patient portal for the hospital. You should have been given a paper that tells you how upon discharge.
@Lily5 is in Florida. Lilia shares she’s not had any treatment yet and has 2 intracranial unruptured aneurysms. Lilia also shares she’s is 78 years old and loves to travel. She does aerobic exercises 6 times a week!
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For those of you that have been active on helping others, you rock! It literally makes my day to see others helping out! Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I need to give you all a heads up - if the surgeon decides surgery is my best option for some issues with my wrist, I won’t be able to type and may need everyone to step up a bit more. I know I’m a candidate but I need to know a bit more. I’m planning on having the surgeon do a scale of 1-10 ROFLOL. I’ll let you know next Sunday on the welcomes.
Until next week - Stay safe, hydrate, breathe most of all, hug the ones you love!