Hello Everyone,
This past Father’s Day was the best Father’s Day of my life. I am 46 years old and come from a long line of family members that have polycystic kidney disease. It is a hereditary disease as I’m sure some of you know and with it comes hypertension because of the chemical called Renin that doesn’t Shunt through my body which gives me hypertension.
My mother had a mid cerebral aneurysm rupture in 1996 and it destroyed her life as she was a nurse and a neurological institute in Arizona. My wife’s grandpa had an aneurysm he did not know about that killed him, so with my newfound Aneurysm it has caused a great deal of sadness fear in the unknown and my family.
On Father’s Day after it was over we eat sushi we hugged and we kissed it was a great day. Before bed I started getting a crazy headache and my vision started to blur. As a veteran fire fighter paramedic and the captain I knew something was wrong but I denied it and decided to go to bed. All I remember is waking up in the intensive care unit at a hospital nearby our house to days after going to bed.
When I finally awoke I was told that because of my medication not working anymore I had a head injury called PRES that was completely reversible once they controlled movement medication again. I spent about a week in the hospital on a normal floor after I was in the intensive care unit.
I was released on Thursday and spent four days feeling completely normal again enjoying life no problems. On Wednesday before the Fourth of July of this year the same symptoms came back but I did not go unconscious this time, and I was readmitted to the hospital. During my first day they took three MRIs of my brain and studied it very well. On Friday before the Fourth of July of this year, A new neurologist came into the room in the hospital I was in and told me the news I thought I would never here in my life. He told me that I had an aneurysm in my brain and that they needed to repair it with a coil and possibly a stent.
I’ve always been the rescuer in my life as a firefighter and never a patient to this level of emergency so to be honest with you I broke down in tears and then it became anger and I told him I wanted the procedure done immediately after seeing what my mom went through and knowing what happened to my wife’s grandpa. Halfway through him telling me how they were going to repair it my wife came into the room and she heard the news, obviously she broke down hysterically.
I’ve always been the rescuer in my life as a firefighter and never a patient to this level of emergency so to be honest with you I broke down in tears and then it became anger and I told him I wanted the procedure done immediately after seeing what my mom went through and knowing what happened to my wife’s grandpa. Halfway through him telling me how they were going to repair it my wife came into the room and she heard the news, obviously she broke down hysterically.
This coming Friday, July 17 will be one of two surgeries I’ll be having for the repair of my aneurysm. I don’t know why it took me so long to find this wonderful group of people that you are in this wonderful website to be able to talk about how I feel my fears and ask questions about what to expect and how it’s OK to feel the way I feel. Right now I don’t really have any questions I’m just reaching out to all of you Knowing that there is a giant group of wonderful people but have lots of advice possibly or just love to give during my process. I just wanted to introduce myself and say thank you for being here and eventually being there for me. I know that technology has greatly increased since 1996 and I have a great chance At living a great life doing what I do now as a paramedic instructor as I retired in March after just about 27 years of service to humankind. Again thank you for allowing me to share just a small piece of my story and I hope to meet all of you some of you or maybe just a couple of you that could help me see things after my procedure is done.
My goal now is to have the strength to help my family interim to support groups so they can understand some of the things that might occur to me after my procedure so that we can live the best life we can live and be happy and flourish. Thank you all again for listening and I’m glad you’re all still here to talk to me about what we all share.
My goal now is to have the strength to help my family interim to support groups so they can understand some of the things that might occur to me after my procedure so that we can live the best life we can live and be happy and flourish. Thank you all again for listening and I’m glad you’re all still here to talk to me about what we all share.
Much Love,
Rich