updating.
yesterday morning, around 9, i think, my mom was with one of her friends...all the sudden she started talking really weird and didn't know who/where she was. her friend called the hospital, and she went to st. johns. i was woken by 2 phones ringing and ringing, so i called my sister and she told me what happened:
val: "mom's in the hospital"
me: "what happened?"
val: she had a brain aneurysm"
i knew little about aneurysms, so i looked it up on the good 'ol internet. it told me "When the wall of a blood vessel becomes weak and/or thin, it forms a bulge or a bubble. This bulge or bubble is called an aneurysm. Aneurysms may rupture, causing bleeding in the brain."
there are two different ways to treat an aneurysm, one way is by clamping where the ballooning starts, but in order to do that, you have to open up the head/skull/brain, the doctors didn't think she could handle that and if they left it how it was....then she's basically left for dead. the other method they could do is fill up the aneurysm with these little coils to clog the hole caused by the rupturing. it is safer, and less invasive.
the doctor did the coiling method last night around 7:30 and told us it would take at least a couple hours. around 9:30 they take her back to her room and the doctor comes to talk to us. he told us that the surgery went a lot better than they expected, the bleeding completely stopped and the coils are staying in beautifully.
but there is still some bad news...when the aneurysm occured, she had a stroke (i think that's normal for those 2 to be related) and even though the bleeding is stopped, she's still in a comatose state and we don't know what to expect when she wakes up. now, the aneurysm took place in the left side of her brain (she's left handed, so that isn't the main side that she uses). so she may have problems with speech, vision, touch, movement, thinking or behavior. we have no idea since she's still sleeping.
so, if you can, (even if you're not religious) try, for me, to keep her in your prayers or thoughts.
val: "mom's in the hospital"
me: "what happened?"
val: she had a brain aneurysm"
i knew little about aneurysms, so i looked it up on the good 'ol internet. it told me "When the wall of a blood vessel becomes weak and/or thin, it forms a bulge or a bubble. This bulge or bubble is called an aneurysm. Aneurysms may rupture, causing bleeding in the brain."
there are two different ways to treat an aneurysm, one way is by clamping where the ballooning starts, but in order to do that, you have to open up the head/skull/brain, the doctors didn't think she could handle that and if they left it how it was....then she's basically left for dead. the other method they could do is fill up the aneurysm with these little coils to clog the hole caused by the rupturing. it is safer, and less invasive.
the doctor did the coiling method last night around 7:30 and told us it would take at least a couple hours. around 9:30 they take her back to her room and the doctor comes to talk to us. he told us that the surgery went a lot better than they expected, the bleeding completely stopped and the coils are staying in beautifully.
but there is still some bad news...when the aneurysm occured, she had a stroke (i think that's normal for those 2 to be related) and even though the bleeding is stopped, she's still in a comatose state and we don't know what to expect when she wakes up. now, the aneurysm took place in the left side of her brain (she's left handed, so that isn't the main side that she uses). so she may have problems with speech, vision, touch, movement, thinking or behavior. we have no idea since she's still sleeping.
so, if you can, (even if you're not religious) try, for me, to keep her in your prayers or thoughts.