Recently, I was asked a number of questions regarding events surrounding the brain aneurysm I suffered when I was 35. Rarely does a day go by that I am not reminded of it. After all, I have a serious scar on my head which starts at my brow and ends behind my ear. I have worn bangs ever since in an effort to hide it. I also have a short term memory and central processing disorder as residuals of the surgery. Both I have managed to overcome through therapy and time. And yet, I haven't relived the actual sequence of events for years. Let's see, I'm 62 now so we're tallking 27 years. That sounds like a long time between the event and now, but I'm here to tell you, it is as clear to me today as it was when it happened.
It was a late January night in 1984. Rog and I were in bed and in the midst of intimate activity. Intercourse, in other words. I remember all the signals were going off in my body telling me I was about to have an orgasm when my head exploded. Well, not literally, but I saw an explosion in my head complete with the accompanying fireworks, white lightening radiating in all directions from a central point against a pitch black background. Really. And my head hurt. Bad. But the rest of my body was reaching for sexual gratification. I remember thinking to myself in a split second, which do I hold on to? The pain or the pleasure? I went for the pleasure. As good as I was feeling once orgasm was achieved however, did nothing for the major headache I was experiencing. I remember getting out of bed and splashing my face with cold water in the hopes of putting out the fire in my head. I moaned, for God's sake, which is not at all my standard. The only other pain I've ever experienced that got any sound from me was child birth.
So, it's midnight or so and I'm in major headache mode but not thinking it's anything more than that, I go back to bed to sleep it off. That has been, and still is, my approach to dealing with illness. Before too long, I was feeling queasy and asked Rog to get a bowl in case I threw up. Throw up, I did. More than once. You might think I would have put two and two together at that point, but no, I was in major denial. I had a headache and an upset stomach. Period. I WOULD feel better in the morning. My husband, on the other hand, must have concluded things were far more serious than that though he did not suggest we go to the hospital at that time. When the clock alarm went off, I did not feel well at all. In fact, not only did my head hurt but light hurt. I know that sounds strange but it did. I could not handle seeing light. Only a darkened room or keeping my eyes closed made the rest of my issues tolerable. My husband suggested we go to the emergency room. Being a teacher, there were details to attend to before I could do any such thing. I had to call in sick and talk with the subsitute. There were no sub plans and the regular plans for the day were with me, not at school. I must have sounded like a total wimp as I weakly described to the sub what I had planned to do that day. Again, in my mind I would be back the following day so there wasn't much need to fill her in on the rest of the unit activities.
So we were off. An indicator of just how bad I felt -- I didn't fix my hair or put on make-up, something I am never seen in public without. I remember checking into the emergency waiting room and sitting and sitting and sitting. I felt like death warmed over and surely looked the same but it seemed to me there was no one acting as if I was an emergency. In fact, nothing about the emergency room indicated emergencies were dealt with there. To me, everyone moved as if time was in abundance. When finally we were called, a young doctor asked me what was wrong and I explained what had transpired the previous evening. He had me stand up and touch my nose with each hand. He asked me to walk a straight line. For crying out loud, I was sick, not drunk! But the results of these simple tests must have told him something because the next thing I knew I was having x-rays and a spinal tap. Blood was found in my spinal fluid and now, for the first time, I began to understand that this was something more serious than a major headache.
I remember lying on a hospital bed on wheels when the neurologist came to tell me what they suspected was wrong. I'm looking up at this face, no body, just a face. A strange face whose mouth is moving but I don't hear the words at first. I hear that they think an aneurysm in my brain has sprung a leak, I'm going to be put in the ICU, I'm going to have a cat scan to determine exactly what has happened and where in my brain, how bad it is. I'm still not fully ready to believe that I'm in serious condition, that I'm not going back to work tomorrow. I'm just glad to know that they may know what's wrong and they plan to fix it.
I remember being in ICU, hooked up to machines. I must have slept a lot while there as I don't remember much. A student of mine came to visit while I was there. She told me she told the hospital personnel she was my sister since only immediate family was allowed to visit patients in ICU. I accepted that answer back then but now I think maybe her father had something to do with it. As I recall he was some kind of official with the hospital. Anyway, once I was stabilized and tests had been run and the diagnosis confirmed, I was moved to a general ward to wait. I was told that research showed that patients with my condition fared better during surgery if a period of up to ten days was allowed for the body and the brain to normalize. Those days went by uneventfully. I ate, slept, bathed in bed, had to ring for bathroom assistance, did cross stitch, and listened to books on tape. I had visitors. Family, colleagues, friends. I never once thought of my condition or the upcoming surgery. I existed in a blissful state of acceptance. No pain, no worry, just doing as I was told and allowing everyone else around me to deal with the details.
The night before the surgery, Dr. Belagura, my micro-neuro surgeon, came to discuss with Roger and I what we could expect the following day. I remember he started out by saying something about how much easier it would be were he to be operating on an old lady whose brain had been stomped on by a Mack truck than to be operating on me, a vital young woman. Not exactly a cheering way to begin the conversation. From there he described the procedure and all the possible results. On one end, I could die on the surgery table, especially if I seizure on the table (the whole idea of the ten days prior to the surgery was to lessen the likelihood of that happening). The aneurysm could fully rupture. I could be paralyzed, blind, unable to speak. We wouldn't know until he got in there and found out exactly what was going on and what had to be done to stop it. The surgery would take about four hours.
I remember holding my husband's hand, looking at him. I don't remember what we said to each other before he left for the night but I do remember what I did for hours after. Sleep was not on the list. I finished listening to A TALE OF TWO CITIES. I reviewed the life I had led up to that point. I thought of the things I hadn't yet done or accomplished. I promised myself that if I came through this whole, I would no longer let things happen to me but rather I would make things happen for me. I would not put off for tomorrow what I could do in the present. I promised I would not find myself in this same position in the future with regrets about what I hadn't done, hadn't achieved. At some point, sleep overcame my thinking.
The morning of the surgery, I do not remember feeling any apprehension. Not before and especially not after taking whatever drug they gave me. I remember Roger taking my picture. I remember smiling and laughing as I was rolled down the hallway. I remember thinking how cold and small the operating room was. And then I remember nothing. It's like I was a light and someone had pulled the cord. I was out and stayed out for the better part of two days. The surgery took three hours longer than anticipated. The aneurysm did fully rupture during the operation. I have my medical records and while difficult to decipher, it is clear there was a period of serious concern. Roger spent all seven hours in a waiting room by himself, by his choice. As I think on it, he had the tougher time. He dealt with all the "what if's". He told me he started thinking of building ramps to the house at one point. Friends helped out with our son who was blissfully too young to fully understand all that was going on. Roger, on the other hand, spent some time thinking about life as a single father.
Roger took a picture of me in the ICU after the surgery. I am not sure I really remember anything about my time there and I am thankful I had no idea how I looked. That Mack truck the surgeon talked about the night before the surgery, well, I looked like the Mack truck won. I do remember regaining conciousness and being told how long I had been out. I remember being asked who the president was and thinking one answer while giving another. A wrong answer. I remember drifting in and out and periodically being asked simple questions I absolutely had the right answers to but was to be unable to give. It was like my mouth had a mind of its own. Roger tells me the doctor told him he was very pleased with how things went. I suspect Roger must have had some doubts given not only the way I looked but the way I sounded. Time seemed to work its magic though and gradually the real Robin started to make herself known.
I was moved out of the ICU and about a week later was told I would be going home. I felt great. Light no longer bothered me. I was lucid and not only knew but gave the right answers to such questions as, "Who is the president? How old are you? What's your name?"
At home there was a period of rest and then a period of boredom. I had follow-up appointments with my neurologist who explained that there would be residuals from the surgery but that they couldn't say for sure what they would be until the scar tissue had fully developed. From all indications, the worst had been avoided but one couldn't dig around in someone's brain without some expectation of consequences. My aneurysm was located near the optical nerve on my left side. It was in an area that dealt with language. That's what I was told but at that time it meant nothing to me, really. Everything seemed normal so about six weeks after the event itself, I returned to work. That was a mistake.
Going into a classroom to teach flanguage arts to thirteen year olds is a challenge under the best of circumstances. For someone who hasn't fully recovered their energy and who might have a few loose wires in their head, it proved extremely frustrating. I loved teaching and I loved my students. I had every reason to believe they loved me. Well, at least as much as 8th graders can love any teacher. Things seemed to be going okay other than my being tired but there were a few quirky events that I couldn't explain. A student would give an answer and I'd repeat what I thought was said only to be greeted with unexplained laughter. I would be asked to do something, whether by colleagues, students, or Roger, and I wouldn't get the task done. My forgetfulness frustrated others, Roger most of all. My last days of teaching were less than auspicous. I chalked it up to being very, very tired.
Then summer came and while my memory issues bothered Roger, the lack of job responsibilities helped life resemble normalcy. I took a leave of absence to return to grad school that fall and there my frustrations grew. At one point, I believed I was going crazy. I had always been a decent student. Learning, when I applied myself, was relatively easy. Not so now. I could read a page and not remember a thing. I could read it four or five times and barely remember the most important concepts while not holding on to any of the details. At one point I was called upon to give an answer and then having given it, I was asked to repeat it for the class. I couldn't. I couldn't remember the question much less my answer! I wasn't tackling the duties of my assistantship well either. Nothing was going as I had expected and finally I shared this with my neurologist. Tests were run and it was determined that I had a short term memory deficit and a central auditory processing disorder. Can you inagine the relief hearing that brought to me? I wasn't crazy. Things that once were simple, weren't any more. But knowing what was wrong, I was able to receive a bit of therapy and make some adjustments. Clearly, I've been able to do well inspite of these issues. In fact, I think it made me a much better educator. Understanding that different brains process differently helped me understand the need to present information using multi-modalities.
So, here I am, 62 years old, retired, enjoying a full and happy life. The only thing, in addition to the scar, that remains to remind me of the aneurysm, is a tingling sensation I experience on my right side, especially in the extremities. It's nearly a constant in my life but I'm so used to it that I have to think about it to feel it. Were I to face a similar situation today, I would have only one regret -- the possible loss of the years ahead and for that I am grateful.
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