You are fine. Its perfectly normal to feel that way. You will have those days but just remember to give thanks for good and bad. You are in a university hospital where they will give you the best care. Its just sad when you are missed diagnosed and then suffer as a result. I will be praying God comforts your heart. This support group has been so great for me. Keep in touch.
hi Michele! I read all the comments and they are all awesome, I cant really add more but wanted to say hi and tell you that you are doing great 1 month post!! you are on the right track! ps look how far you've come and also transport yourself to the future where you will reflect back at the great progress!-tc
hi Michelle.....you don't have to apologize here....we have all rambled and vent and this is the perfect place to do it. I agree with Christine....REST....and except the help....I know letting people see us in this state mostly if you have been the one who was always on the go...and the one giving help....well it is your turn. and it is hard that you want to be back to normal....your body needs to recover so take your time...rest...take the help...and before you know it you will start to feel better. We are all here for you!!!
JM
You sound just like me 4 months ago! Acceptance-it's going to take a good while to recover. Don't rush it or you will feel worse. Realize-what your brain has been through. DO NOT feel guilty for accepting help!!! Glad it worked out the way it did!
hi, not remembering things after a rupture or leak is really common. about the last thing I think I remember was being in the ER (I was in and out of consciousness by then) but I barely remembered anything for the next 3 weeks. My husband had to over several days tell me about what happened while I was in hospital, I'd had several angioplastys due to vasospasm and also had something infused into my blood to open up the arteries again, I kept crashing and was regularly whisked away for another procedure for vasospasm, and it was hard to believe since I didnt remember it. I still don't, but then my brain was pretty messed up, Im kind of grateful I wasnt taking it all in. I also dont really remember the first 6 months out of hospital, my brain was so foggy and I had memory problems so I dont even know how I spent my time really. I dont even remember being aware of xmas last year or that xmas even took place. I dont worry too much about it, my brain was doing the best it could. It's been a year since my rupture and I've slowly improved over time. I've been through the brain fog, the depression, the wondering why I survived etc, now I'm working on just moving forward from here as best I can. recovery takes as long as it takes, I was frustrated too in the early months but it wasnt really in my control, but patience and rest were the things I needed most. good luck in your recovery
Hey Michelle! you have been receiving wonderdul support from the members! I’ve lost some time after my rupture - no recollection of the local ER. In and out on my first helicopter ride, but they kept giving me medicine to knock me out during the flight and I wouldn’t stay out. Apparently the phenegran they gave me for nausea effected my ability to communicate and they had to let it get out of my system. I don’t remember being nauseas. My partner says I woke up the day after surgery which was a little earlier than they thought I would but I was in and out for a couple days. I think losing those days has to do with the shock and then the procedures along with the anesthesia. Keep hydrated I can’t stress this enough and if they didn’t tell you in hospital, increase protein to help brain heal.
It’s okay not to be strong right now. You will get stronger. It’s good to ask for help, you will be the helper again but right now it’s your turn! I learned to keep a little notebook nearby and write things down. Take it easy and rest! If you do too much, your down longer than if you listened to the doctor’s advice. I keep learning the hard way what my limits are, but I’m an old dog and it’s hard (not impossible) to learn new tricks:)
Thank you to everyone for all of the advice. Naturally I’m not a patient person so it’s hard for me to heat rest and give it time but have started to accept that I will have to do for now. So nice to have people that can understand.
That's right - mine happened in Spain, and all they kept saying to me was "poco a poco" - little by little - which was not what I wanted to hear! Patience isn't my strong suit either. But when you haven't got a choice, you learn it, and time passes. One thing - don't keep comparing yourself with how you were pre-rupture - compare yourself with how you were a few weeks ago. Then you will see you are making progress.
Myra: your story is EXACTLY like mine!!! At least 3 weeks lost, lost eye sight, eye surgery, then cataracts and surgery. That was in 2007, then in 2011 I needed it clipped, but that was a piece of cake!!! Fatigue was my biggest issue!! Chris
Myra said:
February 2012- I went to work like normal. I had been complaining all week that I had a headache. In the past I had suffered from migraines. Last thing I remember February 9,2012 is talking to my best friend on the phone. Next thing I remember is March 1, 2012-3weeks later. I was asking a nurse what happened and where was I. She said I had a ruptured aneurysm in my brain. I slapped her on the keg and said I did not. She assured me I did and had another un ruptured one. I asked her where was I. She said I was at U T Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. I told her I must be dying then… I’m from Fort Worth & we don’t go to Dallas. She told me I was not dying any longer. That both of the aneurysms had been coiled. I also could not see. The blood from the rupture had filled my head and pressed on the optic nerves. They went in and got the blood out. My sight was back. I back to work on June 1st. Then my sight started going bad. I had developed cataracts in both eyes. Two more eye surgeries later and my sight has been good. I sympathize with your frustration. People have tried to fill me in on those 3 weeks that I have forgotten. I wasn’t in a coma. I talked to everyone that came in my room. It has been neatly 3 yrs and I have never remembered anything from those 1st 3 weeks. I am back to work full time and after having to go back and add more coils I haven’t had any real problems. I have intermittent vertigo and some short term memory loss but I turned 59 in September so some things aren’t remembering. You will love this site.
I feel the exact same way. I should have died.Nov 21 worst hheadache ever like a hot pokes went through my neck and back of my head. Then nothing. Blacked out. We live in the boonies so my fiance drove me to the nearest er was airlifted to university of Cincinnati where i had a second bleed when they landed and my right pupil blew. Just so happened the dr on call was mario zuccarello who is top in his field here. They took me straight to surgery and i woke up on sunday. My surgeon even says if we would have been10 min longer I wwouldn’t have made it.
Myra, me too, had to have four eye surgeries - one on each eye to remove he blood, then later one on each eye to remove the lensees, as they had been damaged and I had developed cataracts due to the toxic blood. The lenses were replaced by plastic prescription ones inserted inside my eyes - amazing! As it happened, I was in Spain where, I am told, they have the best eye surgeons in the world. Now my distance sight is good, I just need reading glasses. Regarding memory loss, I pretty much lost the three months before as well as the three months after my rupture. In October 2010 I travelled back to the UK with my younger son, who wanted to relocate there. I remember being there and helping him settle in, but I don't remember travelling back on my own to Spain, though I did; or that autumn and Christmas. On New Year's Eve, it seems, I set off early evening to meet some friends. The next thing I knew, it was March 2011 and I was waking up in hospital, utterly confused. Soon after that I became almost blind, they told me I had blood in my eyes, and the surgeries followed eventually over the next couple of years. I have never got back any memories of that lost time, although my husband has filled in the events for me.
The only upside I can think of is that I no longer get the dreadful migraines I had suffered for most of my life.
Chris N said:
Myra: your story is EXACTLY like mine!!! At least 3 weeks lost, lost eye sight, eye surgery, then cataracts and surgery. That was in 2007, then in 2011 I needed it clipped, but that was a piece of cake!!! Fatigue was my biggest issue!! Chris
Myra said:February 2012- I went to work like normal. I had been complaining all week that I had a headache. In the past I had suffered from migraines. Last thing I remember February 9,2012 is talking to my best friend on the phone. Next thing I remember is March 1, 2012-3weeks later. I was asking a nurse what happened and where was I. She said I had a ruptured aneurysm in my brain. I slapped her on the keg and said I did not. She assured me I did and had another un ruptured one. I asked her where was I. She said I was at U T Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. I told her I must be dying then... I'm from Fort Worth & we don't go to Dallas. She told me I was not dying any longer. That both of the aneurysms had been coiled. I also could not see. The blood from the rupture had filled my head and pressed on the optic nerves. They went in and got the blood out. My sight was back. I back to work on June 1st. Then my sight started going bad. I had developed cataracts in both eyes. Two more eye surgeries later and my sight has been good. I sympathize with your frustration. People have tried to fill me in on those 3 weeks that I have forgotten. I wasn't in a coma. I talked to everyone that came in my room. It has been neatly 3 yrs and I have never remembered anything from those 1st 3 weeks. I am back to work full time and after having to go back and add more coils I haven't had any real problems. I have intermittent vertigo and some short term memory loss but I turned 59 in September so some things aren't remembering. You will love this site.
Michelle, I have a hard time remembering my 2 weeks in ICU, however my partner told me they had to restrain me because I was trying real hard to pull out all the tubes. They put mittens on me I had some kind of psyco break but not anymore I wish they had taken a pic with their cell phones of the moment.
I had one of those days too Caroline. I was convinced the doctors at the hospital were plotting against me and I just HAD to leave. I did manage to pull out my feeding tube, pull off all of my heart monitor tab things. My husband got there and calmed me down. After that they put the alarm on my bed. Not exactly my proudest moment. It was about four days after surgery and the same day I had vasospasming(?)
I was completely off my trolley in the hospital, they had to tie me down to the bed because I would pull out my cannula, nasal feeding tube, everything and try to get out of bed, They had to trank me right down because I was disturbing the other patients at night - I was screaming at the woman in the next bed because she "kept singing songs in German loudly all night" and it was doing my head in - except the poor woman could not even speak, let alone sing, and she was Spanish, not German! I also thought there were two black dogs lying on my hospital bed, and was complaining that it wasn't very hygienic. Plus Ithought I could see grass growing around my bed, and wanted to get out and sit down on it and smoke a cigarette! I believed that my brother was working at the hospital where I was, and came to visit me on his ward rounds. My brother is indeed a doctor, but he was at work in Sheffield, not in the Spanish hospital where I was! It went on and on. The brain is a very strange thing. Four years on, I can laugh about it, but it was very distressing at the time, for me, the staff and my poor husband. The staff, of curse, are used to patients with injured brains being crazy, and they did their best to reassure my husband that things would settle down. I did go back later and apologise to them for being a nghtmare patient!
I had that vasospasm thing too same time about 3 days later, they had to put mittens on me the tube that was in my head collecting the blood backed up, and that is when my condition became grave. But I lived.
Michelle said:
I had one of those days too Caroline. I was convinced the doctors at the hospital were plotting against me and I just HAD to leave. I did manage to pull out my feeding tube, pull off all of my heart monitor tab things. My husband got there and calmed me down. After that they put the alarm on my bed. Not exactly my proudest moment. It was about four days after surgery and the same day I had vasospasming(?)
I have to laugh at the mittens now but not when I too had them. I felt terrible when they had them on me and I was damned if I wasn’t going to get them off. Good thing they are big like boxing gloves or I wouldn’t have been able to sit on them right and pull them off. Of course it hurt like hell, I pulled my IV out of my hand and I really had to work at it for some time but it gave the nurses a break from me trying to climb out of bed to get away. I don’t remember what I was thinking at the time but all I knew was I needed to escape. Crazy stuff but the nurses all assured me it wasn’t unusual with “head-cases” as I liked to refer to all of us on that floor. 1 year later now and God bless the nurses and doctors that took care of us all. It is sure a long recovery journey but your tenacity and spirit will get you through day by day. I was bothered at first I lost three weeks at the hospital but bits and pieces will return (although not all) and you will find its not as important to you because you will be grateful to be alive and recovering to make new memories. I wish you the best!
Aw you went thru same thing as I did. Whew.....my identical twin sister and I talked today and she told me when I was talking to her on the phone the nurse asked me to give her the phone apparently I had tugged at that tube on top of my head and the blood was backing up in my brain and she told me they told her I was now in a critical situation and I couldn't talk anymore. My twin asked her if I was going to die. The nurse said, I cannot tell you if she is going to die but you better pray for her. My twin had a cat scan to check her self out and she had the same Annie I did we were born with it through our development in our mother. She is trying to help me come up with 6000. as my out of pocket part on my insurance then my insurance will pay 100 percent. it is kind of stressing me out getting the cost amount however like my twin told me I AM ALIVE I didn't die. Amen