Orgasm = Aneurysm?
Jun 18 '03 (Updated Jun 08 '05)
The Bottom Line If you must die, this would be the way to go eh?
It’s been over four months since I nearly died from an aneurysm with a vengeance. The road to recovery has been long and hard and I am still having trouble writing. I know that I will be back to normal eventually but right now it is hard to believe. First, I’d like to apologize to all my friends here at Epinions for taking so long to get this out. I’ve had a terrible time trying to write, and wouldn’t have even been able to do this if I hadn’t had help because even now…I can barely answer emails.
Well, here it is…my story on the most part. It’s a bit disjointed and I’m not completely satisfied with it, but hopefully things will continue to improve so I can get back to my normal odd self here with my friends…(smile)
I woke up in the hospital with no idea how the hell I had gotten there or what was wrong with me. Mike was with me and more upset than I had ever seen him. He was blaming himself for my brush with death because we had been making mad crazy monkey love when I went into a seizure and swallowed my tongue.
Eventually he calmed down and the doctor started explaining what had happened to me and what they were going to be doing for the next several days. Going home any time soon was out of the question!
At that time there were a lot of questions I didn't ask, mainly because my only thoughts after regaining consciousness were about getting home to my two babies! It was worse when I thought about Sam, she's almost two and I hadn't been away from her since she got out of her two month preemie stay at the children's hospital. She needed her mommy! I was not the best patient and the nurses hated me that second week, I was a complete bitch to everyone because I only wanted to get outta there and come home.
Okay, back to the questions; did the doctors tell me why I had the aneurysm? That was one I didn't ask, mainly because it was a question I asked 12 years ago when my Dad died of one. Yep, he collapsed with a massive headache, spent five days in a coma then died. They never attempted surgery and, at the time, that really pissed me off - now I understand why. I was one of the lucky few; mine was on a vein that's on the outside of my brain. His was too deep for surgery and, on top of that, after he died they found two more that were about to go as well.
Damn, I'm rambling again...nope, not gonna quit yet...Did the doctors tell me why I had the aneurysm? They told me with my Dad, that it's something you're born with, not something that develops for any reason. They also told my sister, my brother, and me that it's not genetic - that we didn't have to worry it wasn't something that's passed down in the family…yeah…ri-ght! So, there's a question I really need to remember to ask my neurosurgeon the next time I see him. What the hell has changed in just twelve years? I’d really like to know.
Now, after receiving some very valuable links from friends here online, I find out that if there is an aneurysm in your family, there’s a ten percent chance that you have one as well. Here’s the best link I’ve received on the subject…
http://www.columbia.edu/~mdt1/cerebfaq.txt
Any restrictions? Not now there isn’t. They had me on a medication called Dilantin for the first two and a half months. It's a med that prevents seizures and strokes. They had me on it until they could do an EEG to see how susceptible I was to having a stroke, the EEG was clean (thank God!) so I was able to ease down the dosage for two weeks and get off the nasty stuff. It was making me sleep all the time and that sucked. Now I can ease myself into my old routine and raise my babies!
What were the symptoms of the aneurysm? I had an annoying headache all day on Sunday Feb 16th (the doctor tells me that it was the vein starting to balloon), a headache that I thought was just a hangover from drinking Saturday night, and it really wasn't all that painful...just aggravating. I thought it was kind of odd when first a Tylenol in the morning and then an 800mg prescription Motrin that afternoon didn't take care of it.
Well, that night my 18 year old was staying with a friend. It was a rare time where Mike and I pretty much had the house all to ourselves after the little ones went to bed. I remember putting the baby to bed at 7pm, and I remember Mike taking Alex to bed at 8pm and that's the last thing I remember so I'll have to finish this with what Mike told me.
Remember how we had the house to ourselves? Well, we got busy christening the new carpet in the living room at about 9pm. The bubble in that vein burst in the middle of my big O and Mike saw the difference immediately, I stiffened up and was staring all spaced out (the doc tells me that was a seizure, though I thought a seizure was when you shake and crap like that). Mike yelled at me trying to get a response, he listened to my heart and found the heart beat, but noticed that my breathing didn't sound right. I am soooo thankful that he'd had some serious first aid training when he was in the Navy. He opened my mouth, saw that I had swallowed my tongue and saved my life the first time by yanking the disgusting looking thing out of my throat. When he still couldn't get a response he called the ambulance.
The surgery was after midnight so it was on the 17th and they told Mike that they didn't think I was going to make it…damn, he thought it was his fault. It was almost two days later before I was coherent enough to talk and there he was holding my hand, crying and apologizing. Shoot, even with the morphine and Tylenol 3 they had me on, I still had enough brainpower to tell him to cut that out. I told him the truth, that it was definitely going to happen sometime soon and if it hadn't happened when it did I would be dead! He had his full attention on me when that damn thing popped. What if it had happened that night while he was sleeping? Or even worse, the next day while I was alone taking care of the baby?
So, I was in the hospital for two weeks making the staff miserable (I know they had a party after my discharge) and Mike stayed home with me for the first week when I got back. When I got home it was wild to see my tough-guy Biker husband snapping at me to go lie down and handling things like he was meant to play ‘mommy’...yes wild...but somehow really cool...(smile)
I went back for a follow up visit three weeks later and I lost it, finally telling my neurosurgeon that I was afraid to have sex, afraid that it would happen again. I should have told him sooner, for Mike's sake. The surgeon spent a good amount of time assuring me. He explained that for three days after my surgery they had kept me on blood pressure medicine that raised my blood pressure dangerously high and made my veins swollen. While the veins were distended they did regular CT scans and he thoroughly examined every vein in my head. He assured me that there isn't another weak vein and guaranteed that he had repaired the only weak one. He also told me to go home and make love until we were exhausted, so Mike was really pleased...hey, I was too! (smile)
I get to go back and see my neurosurgeon once a year for a brain checkup (until they tell me they’re sick of me and I don’t need to any more), and if they tell me I need to do it for the rest of my life - NO PROBLEM! I’d feel a hell of a lot safer that way anyway.
Now, four months later…except for a problem with concentration (probably the biggest reason why reading and writing is a struggle) my problems don’t seem to be health related. My hair doesn’t want to grow fast enough to cover the scar, and I have a dent, a noticeably deeper temple on the left side of my head that has me a bit agoraphobic (um, that’s someone who is afraid to leave the house), paranoid that people are staring at me…(cough)…like LadyCynic ever cared about that with all these tattoos right? Heh Heh...yeah, I'll get over that one for sure!
Well, that’s about as far as I can go with this right now. Like I said earlier, I’m hoping I can come back later and fill this in a little better. But for now, it’s got to be enough that at least I got the story out. Please forgive me if I can’t reply to your comments like I normally do, my writing skills are suffering right now. I’d like to make sure you know though, that I truly appreciate each and every one! (smile)
No, this wasn't a tragedy...it was a miracle!
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Epinions.com ID:
ladycynic
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Location: American Outback
Reviews written: 59
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About Me:
The early bird may get the worm...but the night owl gets the tequila!
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