HI all,
After a year of what I'm calling my "brain battle" I hope to be on the mend. I have been a member of BAF for about a year but really don't keep up like I should. Basically in Sept 2010, I was diagosed with a giant annie that was partially coiled in Nov 2010. That was followed by the development of hydrocephalaus, which was treated with a VP shunt in March. I have since developed disabling stroke like symptoms, such as slurred speech, drooling, horrible vertigo, loss of balance, double vision and difficulty swallowing. They believe this is caused by brain stem compression due to the size and location of the original coiled annie.
I was referred to a hopspital and neuro treatment team, 6 hours from home, to have the pipeline embolizim device procedure at this facility. I am almost a week post op and some of the symptoms have improved (swallowing is better, vision seems to be improving, speech is less slurred). The proceure took about 90 minutes and though sedated I was awake for the entire time. Doctors put it 2 pipelines to divert blood flow from the annie and blocked one side of the vertibtral (???) vessel/artery with 7 more coils. As of the last angio (which I am beginning to really hate having done) ...everything looked good. Blood flow was diverted and the coils were still in place.
I hope to keep up here a bit better this time. I expect to be resting at home for at leat 5 weeks. so I should have plenty of time.