Scott Bachmeier was born in Moorhead, Minnesota in 1961, and grew up in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He attended college at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, obtaining degrees in physics and meteorology. In 1996, he moved to Madison, Wisconsin, where he met his wife Ruth (they now have a wonderful daughter Heidi). Scott loves to be outdoors, and enjoys cross country skiing, cycling, and canoeing. He was 41 years of age when he suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm.
Not Tonight...I Have A Headache
19 March 2003
On July 13, 2002, I went to a baseball game at Miller Park with a group of friends. I don't even like baseball, but I was along for the social aspects of the event. The game eventually ended (yes, the Brewers lost), and we were in the process of walking out of the stadium when I suddenly felt very dizzy. I recall looking around for something to lean against before I passed out. I only lost consciousness for a minute or so, and when I came to, I remember feeling incredibly weird and disoriented. I knew something was seriously wrong with me, but I had no idea what exactly. I started to vomit. My friends were smart enough to summon the EMTs, who then carted me off to an ambulance and to nearby Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee.
That's the last I really remember of July 2002 (the story of the 2 1/2 weeks that followed is told to me through my wife and my thick stack of medical records, and I have no choice but to believe them). I went into a coma that night at the hospital (my Glasgow Coma Score of 6 was about a bad as that of the home team), and CT scans revealed an extensive grade 4 subarachnoid and intraventricular hemorrhage. Two days later, I extubated myself as I began waking from my comatose state. The doctors saw their window of opportunity, and whisked me into the OR to perform a craniotomy to clip the 8mm fusiform aneurysm that the angiogram revealed on my right vertebral artery (at the origin of the posterior inferior cerebellar artery, or PICA). Two titanium clips were expertly put in place, and then it was back to the neuro intensive car unit for 15 days of monitoring my vasospams with transcranial Doppler (as a meteorologist, I must have thought that was really cool). My parents, brother, and sisters came to visit me - I remember nothing, even though we carried on conversations. Some of my comments to the nursing staff were apparently humorous - again, I have no recollection of any interactions with anyone. Those were some really good drugs they were giving me.
I eventually improved enough to move to a regular hospital room in early August, and then finally was discharged to home 3 weeks after my arrival. My first 2 weeks at home were wonderful (because I could be with my 3 year old daughter again), and awful (because I began to vomit several times a day). More CT scans revealed enlarged ventricles in my brain (hydrocephalus), so it was back to a hospital (this time, the University of Wisconsin hospital in Madison) for the placement of a ventriculo-peritoneal (V-P) shunt. Those 3 days in the hospital were the worst part of my whole ordeal, since I was vomiting every hour or 2 (and I did not have the benefit of all those mind-numbing drugs given to me at Froedtert Hospital). I quickly recovered though, and then it was back home again to resume my long road to recovery.
Having just lost 30 pounds and received 2 really bad haircuts, I must have looked like a totally different dad to my daughter. Wearing an eye patch didn't help either - I had a bad double vision problem. However, I slowly began to gain back strength and coordination, and I was able to ditch the cane for walking after a couple weeks. I had entertained visions of quickly getting back into shape and starting my training for the upcoming American Birkebeiner ski marathon, but my neurosurgeon dashed those hopes by showing me the post-op angiograms - my vertebral artery still looked a little abnormal. We scheduled another angiogram for December 2002, and I began the wait. "Walking time bomb" was a feeling that came over me quite often during the Fall months.
Luckily, the angiogram turned out to be a good study, and I was then cleared to begin resuming physical activities. By this time, my double vision had finally cleared up on its own, and I slowly began to feel more normal again. I started to cross country ski a bit, but I was so terribly out of shape that I quickly abandoned any thoughts of ski racing that winter. I was just happy to be able to be out on the snow, and to be with my wonderful family, and to start getting back into my work at the University of Wisconsin.
While it was a traumatic experience for me and my family, the whole brain aneurysm episode also brought some positive aspects to our life. Things are not taken for granted anymore. I was not a religious person before, but now I am ready to bring some religion into my life. And I learned a whole bunch of really cool medical terms.
That is my brain aneurysm story...
Update: 29 January 2006
Well, it has been almost 3 years since posting my original narrative, so I suppose that an update is in order. The past 3 years have been something of a character-building roller coaster ride. During the year following my brain aneurysm, my recovery was actually going remarkably well. A major milestone was me being able to participate in a major cross country ski race (the 23 km Kortelopet, a shorter version of the 51 km American Birkebeiner ski marathon), and I skied it and crossed the finish line with my wife. That was really cool!
My family also survived the ordeal of buying a new house, moving, and then selling our old house -- we moved into a wonderful neighborhood and gained a great new circle of friends. I began to cycle to work again on a regular basis. Life was good.
However, subtle symptoms began to appear that would foreshadow more medical adventures. I began to have a numbness in my feet and lower legs, which got progressively worse over time. I was convinced that the numbness was due to the statin medication (Zocor) that I was on to manage my high cholesterol levels -- but even after stopping the drug, the numbness continued to get worse. My balance also began to get pretty bad, along with intermittent incontinence issues. Enough red flags were raised to convince my neurosurgeon to order MRI scans of my entire spine.
I'll never forget the sinking feeling that came over me as I sat alone in my car and read the radiology reports from those MRI scans: the terms "severe adhesive arachnoiditis" and "tethering of the spinal cord" could only mean one thing: spinal cord surgery. Oy.
As it turns out, the bleed from my brain aneurysm injected a massive amount of blood into the cerebrospinal fluid, especially in the brain stem region. Blood in the CSF is basically a toxin, so my body was attacking the perceived toxin, and scar tissue was growing within the CSF space surrounding my spinal cord such that the cord was being tethered and pulled against the spinal vertebrae. That tethering was occurring at several locations along my cervical and thoracic spine, and was likely the cause of abnormal pressure on the spinal cord that was causing my neurological decline. So, surgery to un-tether my spinal cord was scheduled for the day of the November 2004 US Presidential Election. Good thing I was heavily sedated.
The surgery was scheduled to be an 8-hour procedure. However, the extent of the scar tissue was so severe that after 10 hours of decompressing my cervical spine region, they decided to close me up and reschedule another surgery for the thoracic spine a month later. Imagine how excited I was to hear that! Having been warned that there was a small risk that I could become paralyzed from this particular surgery, the first thing I remember doing in the recovery room was wiggling my (still numb) feet to see if I could -- I recall mustering a big smile upon realizing that I still could do so.
During the month of recovery at home, I was actually rather surprised at how quickly I seemed to be bouncing back. Sure, there was a lot of pain (oxycontin was my friend), but I seemed to get better every day, which gave me a lot of confidence going into Spinal Cord Surgery, Part Two.
Then came December 2004. My daughter's birthday. As they wheeled me toward the operating room, I asked if they were taking me to Thoracic Park. You gotta have a sense of humor, you know.
For some reason, this 10 hour thoracic spine surgery was MUCH harder to recover from than the cervical spine surgery a month earlier. I finally began to feel good enough to start going back to work by January though, but then it was winter, and with snow and icy sidewalks, getting around with a cane and a neck brace and really bad balance was rather nerve-racking.
February needed some excitement, so one day I decided I was ready to go to the health club and try sitting in the hot tub while my daughter had swimming lessons. While in the hot water, my entire face began to get numb (to the point that I could barely speak), and I lost control of my left arm -- my wife and I were certain that I was having a stroke. Time for an ambulance ride to the hospital.
Luckily, the CT and MRI scans showed no indications of a true stroke -- apparently, the hot tub induced a blood pressure drop to my head that set off a "vaso-vagal event", with symptoms that were similar to that of a stroke. So, I was able to add "Fake Stroke" to my medical resume.
Then spring came, and with warmer weather came ice-free sidewalks -- I was slowly getting more mobile, and eventually gained the freedom to walk to the bus so my wife didn't have to drive me to work every day.
But wait -- in April, I began to feel some pretty severe abdominal pains. These pains kept getting worse and more frequent, and at times were 10 on a scale of 1-10. CT scans of the abdomen revealed a fluid collection at the distal tip of the ventriculo-peritoneal shunt catheter -- a likely sign of an infected shunt. Great...now I needed a shunt revision! Because of the nature of the infection, I had to stay in the hospital for 10 days so they could saturate my body with antibiotics and eliminate every last trace of the infection. By this time, I was growing rather weary of my medical adventures. I just wanted to feel quasi-normal again.
As it turns out, getting a new shunt was just what the doctor ordered. I felt remarkably better in a matter of weeks -- in fact, a month later, I started cycling to work again on a daily basis. The Summer of 2005 was actually a very enjoyable season. We went camping for the first time in years. Life was good again!
And now, it's winter again. While I'm still struggling with the numb feet and poor balance issues, it is a thrill to be able to go cross country skiing with my wife and daughter (I missed the entire last winter due to the spinal cord surgeries and slow recovery). My goal now is to stay out of a hospital during the entire calendar year 2006...
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