In April of 2011, I was diagnosed with a 6 cm cerebral AVM in my right parietal lobe. A craniotomy was too risky, so we opted for Gamma Knife Radiation.
During my 1st GK session (June 8, 2011), the doctors found an unruptured aneurysm. My neurosurgeon was concerned & wanted to go ahead & clip it. We scheduled my surgery for July 6, 2011. While he was in clipping it, he found a second one that had not been visible in the MRIs & angiograms done for the AVM. My surgeon described this second annie as "nasty." He clipped it while he was in there.
Two weeks later, I borrowed an electric wheelchair & went to the BIG dog show held in Houston each year (5 day show at the Reliant Center). We dropped off our gear & two of the dogs in the grooming setup we shared with friends, went to my surgeon's office to have my stitches removed, then went back to watch the show! I overdid it the first day, so I spent the 2nd day in bed, but was back to watch the rest of the show--including my girl Gwen getting her first "Major" point award.
6 weeks after surgery, I was at school for back to school inservice days for teachers. The week after that, I was back to teaching my 9th grade Special Ed. English & reading classes.
I've had 2 more Gamma Knife treatments since then, and we can already see that the AVM is shrinking when MRI scans from June 2011 are shown next to the ones from June 2012!
Last summer, I went to a dog show in Oklahoma City, had surgery, then went to the dog show in Houston (about 45 minutes from home). My summer was mostly about recovery.
This summer, I have attended the OKC dog show, will be attending the Houston show, going to a reading conference in New Orleans (woohoo!), and then going to Puerto Rico--for my husband's business, to see an old college buddy, and for fun! The only thing I can't do is go SCUBA diving, and Hector has promised to take me shopping while my husband goes diving.
I am so happy that my husband insisted on the CT in April of 2011 that led to my diagnosis & that I am still here!