Living With A Brain Injury

I remember I had a horrible headache and I told myself “I should message my PCP”. So, my pcp contacted me the following day and said ”you should go to urgent care”. I told myself “it’s after hours so I shouldn’t be worried “. So I got an appointment with urgent care and they followed up with some questions and then they told me “you need to go to ER now”. Now I’m like “wtf” it’s just a headache. However, I went to the emergency room with a bad headache and sat there for hours waiting to be seen. So here we are on  January 19th 2022 and It’s about 6pm. I’m tired, ready to go home and after a few hours I was finally seen and looked at via CT Scan. I was told the headache was caused by a small bleed so they would give me some strong aspirin and send me home because the bleed should clear on its own. But, One doctor decided to do a MRI.

So, I asked them what is next and that’s when they told me the neurologist would be in. Now it’s 4 am on January 20th aka the longest 3 days ever and I’m ready to sleep on this hospital bed; regardless of how uncomfortable it was but all I can think is “my brain is bleeding “. Finally I hear a knock and I’m like “finally it’s the neurologist” but it was a nurse telling me the neurologist would like to transfer me. He wanted to sent me to the hospital where he has his own neurological team and wing. I was kind of mad but more so in disbelief that this is happening right now. I’m thinking “damn I need the whole team and the state of the art shit, whole wing huh, this must be serious”. I guess you could say I was a bit in shock for the moment. Meanwhile, here it is 5am (remember I ain’t slept yet) and I’m getting ready to be transferred via an ambulance. Now, I never rode in one let alone the back of one but the more it went on the more it felt like a serious matter. At this point, I’m in this ambulance, it’s 5:30am and paranoia starts to set in so I really couldn’t sleep.

I finally make it to the next hospital and I’m thinking ” ok I can relax now” but wait there’s more. The neurologist (from the previous hospital) and his team came in to let me know he wanted to run his own test. I’m beyond tired but my body would not rest. It’s about 7am now (Now, it’s Thursday, remember I went to the 1st hospital Wednesday at about 6:30-7pm) and I’m in another emergency room. I’ve been awake for about 24 hours with more test coming my way and no sleep in sight but I’m hanging on. At this point, I’m not sure if it’s determination or paranoia creeping up again but I’m sure it’s the latter of the two. Furthermore, the neuro doc wanted his own CT scan, MRI along with some other medical jargon I couldn’t name but he proceeds to tell me I have a small brain bleed. Which is what I knew already and got annoyed. I’m think “bruh I’ve been up the last 24 hours and you telling me the same thing, C’mon man”. However, the neurologist decided he wanted to do an Angiogram and I’m like “a what now?”.

I’m break this down a bit y’all so look, Long story short (like this story isn’t long enough) Angiogram is the process of scanning and checking blood flow through arteries or veins by inserting a catheter through the wrist or groin and yes I was awake during the entire process. Results from the Angiogram came back and the neurologist discovered an AVM (cue pensive music). AVM stands for Arteriovenous malformation and it is an abnormal connection between arteries and veins. Of course it’s something I never heard but I knew after all this time I better do what the doctor said. The neurologist recommended a procedure that  sounded simple but then he asked me the toughest question of them all (cue more pensive music). He asked me “if there are any complications and it came down to it do you want me to save your life”. Now, here I am sitting here alone (thanks to covid regulations STILL being in place) with no friends, family and most importantly the love of my life.

As I sat a bit longer, my mind was just frozen in fear thinking the worst, but I said what any person would say at that moment which was “yes, do what you have to do”. The neurologist advised on having the procedure the following day and all I heard was “rest”. After all of that I was finally admitted into this hospital and also finally got some food (oh I haven’t eaten in like two days at this point) but of course it was hospital food and the horror stories are true. While it didn’t taste nasty it definitely wasn’t tacos and wasn’t much. I was thinking ” man who cares” cause I was half asleep anyway. It’s just to bad them hospital beds were so uncomfortable. The following day comes and It’s Friday the 21st, and it feels like I slept an hour or so before they come waking me up. The neurology team preps me for the procedure and rolls me to the operating room. They explained the procedure which was to enter my vein/arteries with a catheter and seal off the AVM with an onyx glue. Due to how extensive the procedure was I was provided some anesthesia. So they talked to me for a few minutes before the anesthesia took affect and It gave me the best sleep in days and at this point the procedure began.

Now here is when it gets fuzzy, I woke up a bit dazed and confused  and not sure of what is going on. At some point they called me but my response was sluggish. My words were slurred and I did not know what was going on.  It’s crazy because before I knew it I was knocked out again. The next time I woke up I was in ICU and from what I can piece together I was told the procedure went well; BUT the bleeding in my brain caused a hemorrhagic stroke! I’m not going to lie; When I heard the word “stroke” I thought I was too young for that but that was the reality of it. I laid there and tried processing the entire situation but my body was exhausted. It was a lot of unknown for me and I had no clue what to do but I knew life was not over yet.