My Aneurysm Story: The Sitcom Nobody Asked For

4/13/2025 — I was pretty sure I was having a stroke. My wife did the responsible thing and called 911. By the time the paramedics arrived, my body apparently decided, “Just kidding!” and the symptoms vanished. Paramedics left, wife drove me to the ER, where doctors confirmed: “No stroke.” Great news, except the right side of my body still felt like it was auditioning for the role of “Novocain Patient #1.” Hours later? Still numb.

Diagnosis for numbness? Nada. bonus diagnosis: A brain aneurysm. Surprise! I’m like, “Cool. So I came in with a flat tire, and you found a bomb in the trunk.” Also, my dad died of an aneurysm at 40. I’m 57. So, thanks, Dad, for the genetics. Couldn’t leave me money or a fast metabolism, huh? No — just the cranial pipe bomb. As months pass, cue a battery of tests: X-rays, MRIs, MRAs… basically everything short of a tarot card reading, an exorcism, and a magic 8-ball.

Fast-forward to July 31, 2025 — diagnostic cranial angiogram. Results of angiogram delivered 8/19/25. My neurosurgeon tells me: “You have an irregularly shaped anterior communicating artery aneurysm, ~5x6x8mm, with the aneurysmal neck significantly incorporating the proximal inferior A2 segment.” Which I think is medical Latin for: “Your plumbing is jacked up.”

Bonus fun fact: my brain’s arteries don’t talk to each other across hemispheres — like divorced parents who refuse to co-parent. Again, thanks, Dad.

Now for treatment options:

  1. Do nothing just… live my life like a walking piñata, waiting for the swing.

  2. Try a stent and coil, which has a 50/50 chance of working. So basically Vegas odds, except the prize isn’t money — it’s “not dying.”

  3. Craniotomy and clipping, which means they take out my orbital bone and part of my skull, then put it back together like IKEA furniture and hope they don’t have leftover screws.

Both procedures come with a 5% chance of “catastrophic injury,” I asked what that meant, and he just stared at me. You ever been stared at by a neurosurgeon? Yeah, not comforting.

So, my choices are:

  • Walk around with a live grenade in my head.

  • Gamble on a stent with coin-flip odds.

  • Or let a surgeon play Jenga with my skull.

Oh, and remember that right-side numbness from scalp to toes? Still unexplained. “Really? You can separate conjoined twins, replace a face, even 3D print a new jaw… but you can’t diagnose why my right ass cheek is asleep?”

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@Tjwell1 -

I learned a very long time ago that one thing that fathers give/teach us our sense of humor. I can say that is definitely true within my family, so I have a tendency to presume it is true in others - but is that right? My sense of humor was critical throughout my journey, and I find it helpful even to today. Your father did give you something wonderful to help you through as you determine what is best for you!

Like you, I apparently inherited my aneurysm from my father, but his was not found until after mine ruptured,. :rofl: Therefore, my path was chosen for me, so I have been down the endovascular path with coils & stents.

The good news is that all types are here on this forum, those doing watch & wait; endovascular repair like me; or craniotomy folks, and so you have wide group to ask all your questions! Of course, if you also decide you want to get a second opinion, we have names too!

I know a TON was dumped on your plate and you have much to think about, but please let us know if we can help out, or even if it just helps to vent to people who understand!

Fin Whale Fan :whale:

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Thank you for sharing your post visit update, Todd. Like @FinWhaleFan said we are here to listen or answer questions, share experiences, recommend providers, whatever helps.

(My neurosurgeon is comfortable having those hard conversations and has never answered my questions with a stare! Sorry to hear yours was not at ease to be specific.)

Sincerely @Shinykai

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You did a great job Todd of writing a story that is humorous, frustrating and spot on! My Dad did give me my sense of humor, he’s family deals with fear, sadness etc with humor, anger can be pretty high on the Richter Scale if one pushes long and hard enough. I can blame a whole lot of genetic stuff on Dad, just not my aneurysm. So he gets a pass on that, Mom also gets a pass. I’m the first. so I get to say “To boldly go where no one has gone before.” at least in my known genetic lines.

I don’t remember meeting my Neurosurgeon until the weekend had passed, BH says I did the morning before my procedure. I distinctly remember the first time I met her because I thought the Captain had come in and was hollering “Officer on deck, Officer on deck”. Did you know it’s really difficult to try to get out of an NSICU bed with all that’s attached so you can come to attention? This little spitfire of a woman came in and the energy of the entire Unit changed in the blink of an eye. Has she stared at me? As a matter of fact, yes she has! But it’s because she wouldn’t make a good poker player although her tells are short and fast. It’s because in the beginning with all the numerous follow up appointments we never knew what was going to pop out of my mouth. When she discussed having to do a craniotomy, I asked her if she was going to use a Dremel, a Foredom or just a 3 pound sledge hammer to crack my skull open? That definitely resulted in a stare😂.

Yet when it comes to all the risks she taught me well enough I could correct her Residents when they wouldn’t openly discus the worst ones. She found great humor in it, would send in a Resident she would need taken down a bit by themselves. Then she’d come in when she heard me correcting them rather harshly about lying and say something like “I see you’ve met our patient”. I would commence on telling her that the Resident needed to learn the risks better and not blow the most dangerous ones off, after all we have to sign off that all the risks have been thoroughly explained and understood. It’s very frustrating when I have to sign off on both the procedure and anesthesia and they haven’t given me full disclosure.

What does “a 5% chance of a catastrophic injury” mean exactly? Are they meaning feeding the roots and not walking on the grass, going into a vegetative state or something else? Is the 5% in the surgeon’s specific patient population, the State, the Country or the world? My surgeon has never given me a statistical statement, ever, she nor the hospital she works at collects them. I know because I asked. I also asked her if it was because they don’t want to list the fatalities and she didn’t answer. I took it as a yes because she will not tell a fib. I could be wrong, I often am, I didn’t press her.

Todd, we are here for you with personal experiences of course. I eventually had a stent and more coils installed for my multi-lobed aneurysm, she was procreating daughters like a rabbit. It’s up in the LICA bifurcation and guess where the stent is? In my ACA😂. It did resolve a good deal of problems I had so I’m going to live with it and just call myself a wired, caged, airhead. I read recently from anther member having a stent I’d never heard of that it was made for our kind of oddities. I just can’t remember who posted it or what type it was. Might remember tomorrow, next week or a month or two…

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