Stroke of Luck

It was a Tuesday, I was running with a friend, and I had a sudden headache. It was sudden and accompanied by neck cramps so I didn't think much about it, I've had tension headaches before and this felt similar. But...something was off. Oh, well, my friend went through the FAST review and nothing was off. No facial droop, no slurred speech, just a headache and neck cramps. I did like anyone else would do. I ran back to the starting point and went home, took some ibuprofen and went to sleep.

The next morning, the same thing, nagging headache, and neck cramps. I had a busy day planned at work so I took more ibuprofen and took my husband to the airport and went to work. The headache disappeared with the ibuprofen, but those neck cramps stuck around. I toughed it out at work for half a day, but then I went home. I took a muscle relaxer and went to sleep. I spent the rest of the day self medicating, but I was alert, and oriented. The next day still with the headache, but at last, no neck cramps. I considered it a victory and went to work. The day was going well, the ibuprofen was working and I was having a good day at work. That is until I was sitting at my desk talking to a co-worker, when the headache returned with a vengence. I've never had a migraine before, but there's a first time for everything, right?

I remember saying, "I don't feel good" and then my vision narrowing. Boy was that an understatement. I woke up on the floor of my office, with two faces looking down at me, covered in sweat. I was told to not get up and that an ambulance was coming. Ambulance? What? Thats when I started panicking. Worried that I would pass out again, I was talking as fast as I could, emergency contacts, medications, history of the headache. The ambulance came and I was taken to the hospital.

Being a pilot's wife, you have to have an independent spirit. You have to be able to take care of yourself. Nothing ever prepares you for sitting in an emergency room on your own, with your husband halfway across the country and no family nearby. As a I am a relatively healthy person, passing out is not a good indicator of things to come, so off to have a head CT I went. sitting in the room, my head was on fire, but I had to wait while they did the exam. The tech said that I might have to wait a bit as they might want to put contrast dye in to get a better look. Less than five minutes later, there was dye in my veins and back in the machine I went before they wheeled me back to my room. As I was a bit on the delirious side by this point, I don't know how long it took, but the doctor came in and told me I had an aneurysm. Aneurysm? Aneurysm. I knew what that meant and that's when I started crying. You see, after working in nursing homes, assisted livings and adult family homes, I was all too familiar with what an aneurysm meant, and I was petrified. The idea that I could die didn't enter my head at all. I just thought, what happens if I live?

Thank God for pain medication because I finally was given something for the headache before being whisked off to surgery where I was given anesthetic and when to sleep. I remember waking briefly in my room, my friend Sonja there waiting for me, before I drifted off to sleep again. I woke briefly when my mom's flight arrived, and when my husband finally got home, but for the most part I don't know how long they stayed.

I spent the next four days in a haze of pain medications, waking only when people came in or left. I'm pretty sure that I was entertaining. That's also when in my brief moments of being awake and in pain, I discovered that I was a pretty lucky gal. I had been at home for several days before receiving treatment and I could easily have died, or passed out at home alone, or while driving my car. I had an excellent medical provider who was able to treat my aneurysm without shaving my head. It was also this provider who treated me in a manner that allowed me to hope for a full recovery.