Dr. Foster who performed two eye surgeries to let Gina regain her vision
Thursday 12/23, 2:00 PM - Day 74
Saw Dr. Foster again this morning for Gina's one week post op check and things went very well. She is down to 20/30 vision in the right eye (from 20/40 on Saturday). This is much better than her left was at this point- the day after surgery she was at 20/100 in the left eye. No signs of problems so our next appointment is not until the end of January.
Merry Christmas a few days early!
Monday 12/27, 11:00 AM - Day 78
Happy 33rd birthday Gina! 2 1/2 months ago I was not sure we would be here to celebrate this but here we are and what a great birthday it is!
We had a great Christmas and Gina continues to do well. She still has some days where she does not feel as awake as others (last night she said it feels like when you are 1/2 sick, just a feeling of not being entirely with it).
Monday 1/3, 11:00 PM - Day 85
A slightly belated Happy New Year to all. Although we leave 1999 and the 20th century behind us, the last few months will be with us forever. I could never say "I'm glad this happened" but at this point the residual effects are almost all positives. We look at each other with much more appreciation and we savor every waking minute as a gift. Gina is starting to grasp just how 'low' she was and how miraculous her recovery has been.
Gina continues to do well (and appears to be fully Y2K compliant ;-). We have started tracking her awake/not-as-awake days on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being a really good day a few weeks ago (when she said she felt exceptionally awake and normal). Most days rate 8.5 to 9 with an occasional 9.5. She has yet to feel like she did on the 10 day though.
The neuro-psych test next week has been moved up to Monday (1/11). We arrive at 9:00 AM for 4 hours of testing (with breaks so it is not a continuous session). From what I can gather this is a comprehensive brain function test (cognitive, psychological, motor control, etc). Should be interesting. This will verify that it is safe for her to resume independent daily activities.
Assuming all goes well on the neuro-psych, the next day (1/12) she has the classroom part of drivers rehab to be followed by an on-the-road test at some point.
Monday 1/10, 4:00 PM - Day 92
Just got home from the 'day of testing'. It was a very long day for Gina- we arrived at 9:00 and after 30 minutes of general background gathering, they took Gina to the testing room where she did not emerge for almost 5 hours. No breaks or even lunch.
I was unable to go back with her so I did not see what took place but she said it was a variety of questions, motor skill exercises, and cognitive reasoning tests. To give an idea of the scope, one section alone was a series of 370 questions. The tests are designed to 'test to failure' so no matter how well you do, eventually you start missing answers and they use that to determine your cognitive and motor skill levels.
It will be 10-14 days to get results. Some disappointing news is that it looks like she will have to take the in-car portion of drivers rehab before being allowed to drive again. This is not scheduled until 2/10 so she will be housebound for another month.
She still has not been cleared for being left alone, partially until the neuro-psych results are back and also due to the risk of seizures. The chances of a seizure decreases with each passing day but if she were to have one it would be similar to the night of the original bleed (something I do not want to relive). I just talked to Dr. Tew's assistant to find out how that affects driving, being left alone, etc. So long as she does not have one, we are ok. If she does have one, Ohio says you can not drive for 6 months and she will be put on anti-seizure medicine for 1 year. If she has a second one, she will be put on anti-seizure medicine permanently.
We go tomorrow for the first part of drivers rehab.
Tuesday 1/11, 3:00 PM - Day 93
Gina had drivers rehab today and did great. Reaction times were fine and on the written part (essentially the regular driving test) she only missed one question (after having the right answer and then crossing it out... the wording was tricky). Since she had her 'temps' license, I pulled over once we returned to our neighborhood and Gina tried driving for the first time in 3 months. She did just fine and I don't think there will be any issues. We will continue to practice on secondary streets and then try the expressway. She goes 2/10 for her in car evaluation.
Doing a test drive around the neighborhood
Friday 1/21, 5:00 PM - Day 103
Saw Dr. Foster this morning for the 5 week followup. The left eye looks great but he found that she had some fluid behind the right retina. That can ultimately lead to retinal detachment so he wanted to use the laser to build up an area where he suspected there was a microscopic hole. When he said that I thought 'Here we go again, another day long ordeal at Bethesda', but instead, he said that they would do it right there in the office.
The procedure took about 10 or 15 minutes and required 254 firings of the laser. Not a particularly fun experience and the result was a pretty good headache. Dr. Foster said each shot was like a super bright flash going off right in your eye. Nonetheless, it was successful and we go back for yet another follow up next Friday.
Monday 1/31, 10:00 PM - Day 113
Another day, another doctor's appointment... This one was to see Gina's optometrist about new contacts/glasses prescriptions. The surgery did change her prescription a fair amount and each eye requires a different prescription. The great news though is that she has 20/20 vision with the new prescriptions. She even wore contacts today for a few hours and is now off of the post-surgery eye drops. It is pretty amazing considering that 2 months ago she could hardly see a hand waving 1 foot in front of her!
Tomorrow she has some dentistry work to be done (oh joy ;-)... that is not related to the aneurysm (unless it popped a few cavities out). On 2/3 we see the neurologist who administered the 5 hour neuro-psych test. We received a letter stating that she passed for all 'activities of daily living' (including driving) but that there are some 'mild phasic residuals' he would like to discuss with us. I personally think she is fine (no make that great!) but we will have to see what doctor says. In any case, I am elated just to be where we are today.
Next Thursday (2/10) is the day Gina is looking forwards to- her in-car driving test!
Thursday 2/3, 11:00 PM - Day 116
Gina had a follow up with the doctor who administered the neuro-psych test. The results were interesting. Gina scored basically average on most areas and higher than normal on visual comprehension. Alas, one can not expect to go through the things Gina did without some type of residual effects. The best we can hope for is that the residuals will not be an impediment to daily life. Early on (after the neural angioplasty at University), a CT scan showed two areas of her brain that were 'infarcted' or basically no longer functioning. One of these is in the left front temporal area where language and speech processing takes place. The other was deep in the basil ganglia, an area which deals with motor control. As expected, Gina had speech difficulty upon emerging from her coma. Actually, over the course of the first 3 or so days that she was starting to be conscious, she would not say a word, nor even try to. She just looked at us and would sometimes make facial expressions. When she did start talking, she had aphasia (trouble with articulating thoughts into words). This cleared mostly over the rehab period and now she rarely gets words mixed up.
What the test showed is that she has two residuals in this area. First, she still has some aphasia, primarily on lesser used words and thoughts (e.g. calling a protractor a radiometer). Second, her language processing speed is slower than before and her comprehension of language is not at typical levels). She took 3 times the normal amount of time to finish one part of the test. What does this mean outside of a testing environment? Well, if she were the copy editor at a newspaper she would probably be having difficulty. However, since quickly reading large amounts of text and interacting verbally with people about complex topics is not part of her everyday routine, she is really not impacted greatly by this. Additionally, she is still very much in a recovery period (he said 18-24 months is not atypical to still be seeing improvement). Reading and basically practicing language comprehension will also help.
In some ways it is almost a relief to see some residuals... we knew there had to be something missing and this is probably about the best area for it to be in. Making a 100% recovery is still not out of the question either, she will just have to work on this. So we are happy and relieved that there is not some "big" thing missing that had just not turned up yet.
Thursday 2/10, 6:00 PM - Day 123
If you are out driving around and see a cute short haired woman driving a 2000 Mazda MPV with a big smile on her face, it was probably Gina... Yep, she is now cleared to drive! She had a 1 1/2 hour driving evaluation this morning and passed without any issues. Almost 4 months after this ordeal, she is fully independent again.
Friday 2/25, 11:00 PM - Day 138
We saw the rehabilitation doctor for a follow up yesterday and he officially closed her case at Drake... no more followups. It felt like another chapter was finally closed after walking out of Drake for the last time. We also saw the retinal surgeon today and he said things are looking good, we don't go back for three months this time.
Sunday 10/1/2000, 10:00 AM - Day 354
I had to actually figure out how many days had passed for this update... back when I was doing daily or weekly updates I knew the exact number without even thinking about it. Since it has almost been a year, I figured I'd give an update on how things have been going.
I'll start by just saying that people who have not gone through something like this can not fully appreciate just how wonderful simply being alive and healthy is. I wish I could write the words to really capture how this has changed our family (and friends). There is not a single day that Gina and I do not think about, if not talk about, the events of last fall. We have different perspectives of course... she feels like she simply went to sleep and then slowly woke up several weeks later. I'm really glad of that... she does not remember any physical pain or anything else from University Hospital except a few fleeting memories of the last day or two.
On the other hand, those days are imprinted in my mind more deeply than you can possibly imagine. In some ways they are painful memories but whenever I think about them, it makes me feel good knowing how far we have come and how great the rest of our lives will be. I can honestly say that our lives are more complete and better than ever before.
We have not had a single dispute in the past year (how many couples can say that?). There is just nothing that is worth getting upset about so long as we have each other. I wish everyone could have a relationship like we do... there are just so few things that are really worth getting upset about. As I tell the kids... An aneurysm is a big deal, ______ (fill in whatever seems to be so important as to get bent out of shape about) is not.
So how have we been doing? Well we had a great summer! Gina has a relaxed, no stress attitude on life that I can only envy. While I wake up every day and realize that it is a blessing to just have Gina laying next to me, she wakes up and thinks how blessed she is just to be able to wake up and be a normal human being. The kids are, well, the kids and as such argue and do all those other things that can drive parents into hyperstress zone but Gina just takes it all in stride. When I feel overwhelmed, I put my hand on her head and say 'I need some of that stuff'... the funny thing is it actually works ;-). She has not become upset or stressed out with the kids even once in the past year!
We had a great wedding anniversary (13 years on September 26). We celebrated with a trip (sans kids) to San Francisco to do some hiking and see the sights. We have a family vacation coming up in a few weeks (going to Gatlinburg). We were supposed to be there last year the week after the aneurysm (we are so thankful it did not happen while down there) so it will be an odd feeling getting ready again.
Starting on October 13, we are going to read my diary entries each day. It will be interesting to relive those days, each of us in our own way. I hope it gives Gina a sense of just how long she was 'away' and how miraculous it is that she came back.
So that is about all for now. If you stumbled across this page while looking for information on aneurysms, no doubt because a loved one suffered one and you are desparate for information, please know that our hearts go out to you. Hopefully our 'success story' will bring some hope to your situation. If you have not already done so, check out this series of narratives and know that you are in our prayers.
