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Testimonies: My experience with a brain aneurysm

When I was younger, I liked to think that if I wasn't Superman, then at least I was one healthy individual; indestructible. I guess as I got older I modified my views to something along the lines of, fit and healthy. Fourteen years in the British Army has given me an appetite for fitness training, and I always thought that I was one fit individual. My only brushes with illness were meningitis at sixteen and appendicitis at thirty.

Last year was not a year that I will retain as my most pleasurable. My glass walls of invulnerability came splintering down around me, and I had hitherto unknown looks at my own fragility. At forty five, I managed to find myself with a herniated disc and loss of feeling in my backside and down the un-mentionables. Thus disproving the theory, much touted by my foes, that I have no backbone.
I was in and out of hospital, lamenectomy completed, within two days, and after six weeks, was well on the way to recovery when the headaches started.

My doctor, thank goodness, is one of the seemingly rare breed who actually listen to their patients. He could have put my headaches and dizziness down to post operative stress, or something equally as benign, but he didn't. He beat the insurance company into allowing me to get an MRA of the brain.
An MRA looks at the blood vessels as opposed to everything else. An MRI looks at everything, Yeah! I know that it goes a bit deeper than this, but what do you want from me? This sure ain't no technical document.

My fun really started one Friday evening at eight thirty. I had just burnt the evening meal, and was rejoicing that the kitchen was mostly smoke free, when the phone rang. My doctor was on the other end. No! I didn't know that they worked so late either. He gave me the glad tidings that not only did I have a cerebral aneurysm, but it was also one of the twenty percent that was posterior. In other words, at the back of my brain. I hate to say this, but I'm starting to use words such as posterior; anterior; it's pathetic really. At least the news proved that my foes were wrong and I really did have a brain.
But I digress. The learned doctor had me speed off to the Emergency Room, trailing sobbing wife, and threadbare superman costume.

Now, I'm not sure what everyone else may think, but I did not get a good impression of our local ER. I got the distinct feeling that I was taking up their valuable time, and they would much rather be doing something else.
Anyway, I had a CT scan,


Below are the top articles rated and ranked by Helium members on:

Testimonies: My experience with a brain aneurysm

  • 1 of 3

    by Duncan Coldstream

    When I was younger, I liked to think that if I wasn't Superman, then at least I was one healthy individual; indestruc... read more

  • 2 of 3

    by Bonnie Weikel

    On Oct.10th I went to bed about 10:30 my light bulb never came back on till Oct. 31. My experience with a Brain Aneur... read more

  • 3 of 3

    by Pauline Boudreaux

    On October 2nd, 2006 I woke up with a severe headache. This headache was localized in one area on the back of my hea... read more

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