Hello I am writing to you from Athens Greece. I feel very lucky finding this page because I can get so many information from other peoples experiences. The nightmare we are living is this.
Last Sunday morning June 24th my brothers wife suddenly as they were watching TV stopped breathing and seemed frozen. My brother after having the first shock gave her mouth to mouth air and called for the ambulance at once. He thought she had a heart attack. Her breath came back but she was cold and in a comma.
At the hospital they said she had a stroke and after some tests they said she had a brain aneurysm which needed an operation and also had a subarachnoid hemmorhage. The next day there was some brain-liquid (sorry I cant explain it in english better) in her head that was squeezing her brain and her right hand started not to move. She went to the operating room at once and had a valve put into her head.
The next day she had an embolization for the aneurysm which was 100% success as the doctor said. Now she is in the hospital for the 8th day she is conscious but she sleeps as much as 22 hours a day and when she is awake she is very nervous and in much pain. The doctors are waiting for the subarachnoid hemorrhage to go away day by day and then she will leave the hospital.
I wonder will she able to live normal from now on? Is she now in a danger to have a stroke again in the future? The time she will be at home from the hospital what kind of symptoms will she have? The doctors said she is lucky to be alive since 3 times she came "back" from death so can we be optimistic for the future or may there still be danger for her life? Any information given will be appreciated. God bless us all.
Update 10 Jul 2001
First of all I would like to thank you all for your support and wonderful words. Theodora (which is the name of my brothers wife - 35 years old) is still in the hospital for the 17th day now. All the exams for the hemorrhage in her head are looking good since the latest exams showed that it is almost gone. Also the exams for the shunt (valve) showed that there is no problem there.
But Theodora cannot wake up for the last 72 hours. She is in deep sleep and even if we shake her and yell at her she seems that she does not want to come out of her sleep. So we cannot wake her to take her medicine and her food. She was not like that at all until now even not the first days after her operation. She always had contact with us talked to us and woke up easily from her sleep. But now she is sleeping so deep that you think she is in a comma. The doctors say that the condition of her health is fine but she is really tired and feeling depressed and it looks like she does not want to cooperate with us or the doctors. When they check on her (with the light in her eyes etc.) she refuses to cooperate and looks like the only thing she wants to do is sleep. This morning the doctors gave her some pills for melacholia and said that in about two hours she will wake up but she didn't.
What really worries us is that she looked much better the previous days even though the doctors and the tests say she is going really fine. Also the fact that she looks like she is in a comma is really frightening and when she cannot wake up when she must, we must shake her REALLY HARD and shout to her very loud in order to see her wake up a little. And why is she not cooperating as the doctors say? Is it depression, melacholia or something else? We so much want to see Theodora become better and pray for it every day. Has anyone experienced this kind of situation at a point like this? How did it turn out? Will she become again the lovely and caring girl we all knew? What else is there to expect from now on, what symptoms?
Thank you all and I hope life will give us all only happy moments from now on.
Update: 5 Jun 2002
Once again hello to our lovely family from Greece. First of all sorry for my not so good english, Ill trying to explain it as well as I can.
The situation of my sister in law, Theodora still hasn't ended. After she left the hospital last August, she had a great progress. At October she looked absolutely normal, and there was no symptoms at all after her life-threatening situation. If it wasn't for the tests she still had and the medication no one could believe she went through such an awful experience. All tests until last March were clean and we were all very happy and believed it is all in the past. But on the angiogram she had at March we found that the aneurysm that had the embolization on last year came back. The same aneurysm grew again just a bit lower of the point of the embolization. The doctors said there was only a 3% chance for the embolized aneurysm to grow again. But we were unlucky to be included on that 3%.
Now Theodora is scheduled for a new embolization on June 25th, on the same date as last years embolization. Of course she is not having the embolization under the same conditions, since last year it was corrupted and her life was in immediate danger. But we are wondering will everything go well. Will this nightmare ever end? Theodora knows nothing about the new embolization, since the doctors told us that it is better for her to live in peace until then. Has anyone been in a similar situation with another embolization in the same aneurysm? How did it turn out? The doctor told us that there will not ever be a third time for the same embolized aneurysm to grow again. Has anyone from the family experienced a third time, on the same aneurysm? Please have Theodora in your prayers. And please god let this nightmare finally have an end. Thank you all and God Bless.