Part IV: Aneursym, the Aftermath
22 March 2009, 10:02
Although those early days were painful, I tried to stay pragmatic and keep my sense of humour. Having your brain opened up and a window cut into your skull tends to put things into perspective. I was alive. About 50% of people who burst an aneurysm don’t survive (15% don’t even make it to hospital) – pretty sobering statistics.
I won’t officially be out of the woods until the 3 month mark, but so far I’ve had no ostensible side effects apart from a bitch of a headache. My aneurysm was on the right side of my frontal lobe so I could have had significant memory and creativity loss or inability to problem solve (career inferno!).
The thing that haunts me is why did cousin Annie choose that particular time to spew forth into the noggin? Why at Bunnings? Most people that burst aneurysms are doing something physically stressful – makin’ sweet sweet lurve, straining over turd on loo, giving birth. I know that the vast selection of rope on offer at Bunnings is an excitement in itself, but aneurysm-bursting worthy? I think not. [Although I can see the ad campaign now – “Bunnings – so exciting, your brain will bleed…”]
As fate would have it, that 15 minute window was the only time that would have resulted in a good outcome that day. If I’d been at home or in the car (heaven forbid with Scout in the back) – either could have been disastrous. If I’d have burst Annie only 24 hours later, when the victims from the Victorian Bushfires started pouring into Melbourne hospitals, I may have had a protracted wait in Emergency (or been rerouted to a smaller hospital) and things may have turned out very differently.
Now, 6 weeks after it happened, I’m learning to live with it day by day. It can actually get quite depressing, almost anti-climactic. In hospital, it’s crisis management time so easy to suck it up and get on with it (“Brain Surgery? No worries, bring it on!”) At home, it’s actually harder – I can’t drive, I’m off work for at least the next couple of weeks so pretty much housebound, on major league painkillers and that clusterfuck of a headache is on my mind all the time which, at times, has me reaching for the laundered straitjacket (but smacking my hand away just in time).
But it aint all dump-city, hell no. I have continually been touched by the love and support that everyone has shown me – friends, family, our neighbours, my work team (most of whom I haven’t even met yet!) even strangers on this blog. With no family in town, one of our neighbours/friends opened their home and took Scout in for the first two nights of the incident, and fed both her and McG – without them I don’t know how we would have coped.
And I would have to say that my marriage has grown even stronger. I pick my battles. I let go of things that I previously wouldn’t have. McG has been Scout’s main carer, housekeeper, chef, launderer, chauffeur, resident Rock. I’ve always known he will be there for me if the going got tough, but this has proven it.
As for my Scout – we’ve always been close, but now I make sure I spend every day appreciating how remarkable she is. And even though my brain can’t cope with her tantrums, I’m more sympathetic towards her – she has gone through a hell of a time with her mum away for two weeks (and I just disappeared, it wasn’t like she had any warning) so I’m more patient. I just sit and watch her play where before I would have been busy “doing” things.
I consider myself a very lucky woman. I’m alive and I have so much to be thankful for.
End of Epiphany.
Permanent Link | - You are a lucky woman indeed and your family is lucky to have you too. The “what if” situations are always so mind boggling after traumatic events like yours. Good luck with battling through those pain killers and your headaches… a relatively small, but still painful trade for otherwise good fortune.
— Rachel Mar 27, 06:04 AM #
