Macca

Ponigirl, Life is a challenge, it's thrown down the gauntlet in front of you. Pick it up, accept the challenge and go for it. Enjoy your husband, enjoy the dogs, they're fabulous animals and their lives and yours will be enriched beyond comprehension for you having been a part of it! When you feel down, have a gripe to yourself and those near you if you must. You have every right to feel down, we all do, but fight it and challenge it because you want to enjoy life as much as you can. But never apologise for being down, there is no blame, it is who you are and you must never apologise for that. Reminisce by all means. You aren't lucky to be alive - you fought to be alive and you won, but no fight comes without injury. In boxing even the winner has to have time to recover. You will succeed Ponigirl, I sense that. Good luck, Macca

You know what you want to do - but your body tells you what you can do - and there is a void between the two. Many a sports star will tell you they know where they should run, but they can't get there in the same time they used to - so they find another way and call it experience! When you go shopping if you can't find what you want, you find an alternative - that's what you're doing now - embrace it, make the most of it and be glad you got the chance! Good luck, Macca

Went in Wednesday Sept 1, 2010 - coiling done Friday - six hours on the table - still recovering some four and a half years later but now much much better than I was. It's been a long road and the people on this site have stayed with me every step of the way, giving me the support I needed after the treatment. People that truly understand can make one heck of a difference. Thank you one and all - and I really mean that. Macca

Hi Dawn, Great to hear from you. It's great you have found a workable solution and that your company has managed a way to keep hold of your experience and skill -set. The most important part for me, though, is that your health has improved and you have managed to maintain your sense of value to yourself, your family and your work - in that order! Lovely to hear such a positive story in the depth of this cold and dark winter! Fantastic news! Macca

Hi Sharon, Welcome to BTG! Just to let you know we blokes suffer these things too. And I'll let you into a secret. My emotions were all over the place too! So if you just want to have a blast, here is the place to do it, we'll help you the best we can. You are at the beginning of the road to recovery and it will take time, so as Tina says don't expect too much too soon. Keep us posted as to how you are doing! Macca

Congratulations Teechur I'm sure your husband and sister are glad to have you too! Keep taking the positives! Macca

Maybe the coiling will take the pressure off the other two! Write your questions down so you don't forget any and record the telephone call if you can so you can go back over what they say to you! Try not to worry about things that might not happen - don't let your imagination run away with you - if you have a problem talk it over with a doctor, a friend, us, anybody but please don't bottle it up! We're always here. Macca

Hi Janey, Welcome to BTG! Well, you've certainly made an introduction here. I have been coiled, however, you appear to have suffered a lot more than me. Mentally, you must be going through the mill at the moment and I can certainly empathise with that mental trauma. Your current situation is obviously of great concern, but at least your doctors are cognisant of that fact and are monitoring you carefully. Keep in touch with them regularly and discuss your forthcoming operation thoroughly. Remember that a lot of people are walking around quite happily ignorant of the fact that they are living with unruptured aneurysms, oblivious to it all. In fact, I was that way until I fell ill. I didn't even know what a SAH was before I had it. If those aneurysms are there, then they've been there for a while, you just didn't know about them and nothing has changed except you are now aware of them. What you need to ask of your doctors is what the effect of your forthcoming operation will be on the remaining aneurysms. Is the risk increased or diminished by the operation? Is the stent a definite, or just a maybe? Is the coiling likely to affect whether a stent is necessary or will it relieve the complications? My heart goes out to you, it really does, but you really need to get answers from the doctors who are to treat you. I would write down all the questions you want answering, because if you just try to remember them you will forget because of the emotion and nervousness when you are face to face. Get someone to help you write them down and go with you, who knows they may come up with some more! I have suggested some questions above, off the top of my head, but you need to sit down and have a good think. Please don't bottle everything up though, keep talking to people and we are always here too, should you want to discuss or have a rant or whatever! We're always here, please keep in touch and we will do all we can to help. Good luck, Macca

Tanya, I used Staysure in Europe and Top Dog outside Europe, the latter were more expensive but when you compare that against the cost of not being insured when something goes wrong, it's worth paying. Make sure you declare exactly what your current situation is though as generally insurance companies look for reasons not to pay out if they can, so don't give them any excuse. Both companies I mention above have been excellent with me. It's a bit like getting a taxi and grudging the fare , but that is less expensive than getting caught drink driving - the consequences aren't worth it so pay the cash, don't grumble and sit back and enjoy your holiday, safe in the knowledge that you are covered - you'll sleep better too! Macca

Wonderful Win, That's just beautiful - keep going lass!! Brave doesn't do you justice! Macca

Yes - I think it helped them decide whether to let me home. I can't remember content either, but I had another test after about 12 months. I could think more clearly than I could speak but I must have done ok because they let me out. It did worry me at the time but I just looked on it as something I needed to do convince them I was improving. Macca

Hi, Just adding to what Sal says above. Some of the minimising that goes on is fuelled I think because of the 'I can't see anything wrong with them, they look the same as they did before' syndrome. That is why it is very important that you assert that you are still not well enough to perform as you once did. I don't mean in capability terms but in capacity terms. Two people above me did not understand my condition and made my life very difficult by expecting the same as before and more. I stood up to them but then decided that my life was more important to me and my family than to put up with their unreasonable demands. On my return to work, I was still able to perform the same tasks as I did before but not in the same quantities. A large amount of travel was involved that I no longer wanted to do and found very tiring. I realised I was acceding to the pressures others put upon me and I could see very quickly that it wasn't doing me much good at all. In fact it was detrimental to me. So much so, that it prompted me to take a good look in the mirror at myself and realise that either the demands upon me reduced or I reduced hours or left. In the end I did the latter and it was the best decision I ever made. Nobody could have told me I couldn't do those capacities any more, I had to see it for myself. The quality of what I did, and therefore my dignity, remained undiminished, but you are not doing anyone any good working from a position of weakness, least of all yourself. In the end I took control of my own situation and left. I do the odd bit of consultancy now, on my own terms and I love it, it means I am still contributing and using my skills, feeling useful and my family are seeing more of me than they ever used to. Win Win all round. This is my own experience. Hope this helps you to formulate your own future. Macca

Jill, Glad you are feeling better, but please go to the doctor's anyway and get checked out. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Look on it the way you would your car, putting it in for a service, to make sure it doesn't let you down when the bad weather comes. You will also put your mind at rest, as from what you say and the way you are saying it, I think you are in turmoil right now and are putting your head in the sand - ostrich style! The very hardest thing after SAH and any problems we have is to admit to ourselves that we have a problem and then after we go to the doctor's we say "Now why didn't I do that before - there was nothing to it?" Going to the doctors is a small price to pay for peace of mind, not just for you but for those around you. Good luck, Macca

Rob, That's why I said liaise with your doctors and nurses at the hospital -not your GP. GP's are generalists, not specialists and you need the latter. Been there, done that - got nowhere with the GP - no disrespect - just simply hadn't got the knowledge! Good luck. Macca

Hi Rob, Welcome to BTG. You will find fatigue is a common problem amongst survivors. I was coiled. I suffered fatigue on a grand scale to the point where I was sleeping up to 16 hours a day and when I was awake I was very tired and wanted to go back to sleep! Over time, it emerged that my pituitary gland had been damaged and stopped producing growth hormone. This helps children grow but in adults it affects stamina, muscle strength, concentration and the like. After many months of tests I now have daily injections of this hormone and I am much, much better. Let me stress at this time it is a rare condition and there are many causes of fatigue, not least the event itself which will have taken a toll on your body strength which will need more time than you think to recover fully. All I will say to you is keep liaising with your doctors/nurses at the hospital where you were treated to see if there is any underlying problem and describe to them what you have described on here. Everyone's experiences of SAH are different and are described differently, but they have several common themes, one of them being fatigue. Seek medical advice Rob or you will just keep wondering and that will drive you as potty as the spiders on your scalp! Best wishes Macca

Hi Iola, I've flown many times since my SAH without a problem. Don't forget that when flying you are in a pressurised cabin which tends to equalise atmospheric pressure although you still may have the popping ears as you ascend and descend. There may be some who have different experiences but I haven't had a single problem. When you are out on the slopes it's different because there you do experience the difference in air pressure and there is nothing to protect you from it. If in doubt seek the advice of your doctor before you fly. Macca

Every day, every month, every year is a bonus for us, those we love and those that love us. Make the most of everyday and cherish all you hold dear. In a sense, every day is like your birthday, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day and New Year's Day all rolled into one - everyday you have the gift of life - unwrap it and enjoy it to the full. Sorry to be so profound but that's how I feel!! Bev, I feel for you and your friend and yes, we continue to battle on, we owe it to those who don't make it to try and make the most of our good fortune. Glad the Gamma stuff went ok! Iola, almost a year gone and you have experienced the long road to recovery, now probably understanding more fully what we tried to explain to you about how difficult it can be and to persevere. You got there in the end - well done! Macca

Hi Chris, Welcome to BTG! I note you are getting back to exercising - please do it under medical supervision. After a SAH your body will have its own way of telling you when you have done too much, and it isn't pleasant, so be careful. Even if you think you can do more, stick to a careful plan, worked out in conjunction with your doctor/hospital and don't step outside of those boundaries. I'm glad you have made such a good recovery so early on, but it is still early days. There are endless stories of sports stars who come back from injury too early and then break down and are out for longer than they originally though they would be! A brain injury isn't something to be trifled with so take care and very good luck to you! Macca

Ponigirl Hi, I'm four and a half years in and its been a right old journey through the dales - up and down, up and down. Over time I've gone from despair and desperation to hope and aspiration. I now look at what I can do not what I can't - and if I can't then I find another way. It's hard, and everyone is different, I know that but the others above make such great points. I've had two dogs in my life - two Mongrels or Heinz 57's (variety) as I called them. The first lived to twenty one and the second to 18. I know they had a great and long life for dogs but when they went it was true bereavement. I was devastated. I didn't get another as I was in a job that started to take me all over the country. So I can well understand how you felt with your horse and nothing can replace my dogs for me. You say you lost your brain, your horse and your job in quick succession. You didn't - You lost your horse and your job - your brain took on a new and different course, but you didn't lose it. As for the others, jobs aren't everything - I guess you miss the social aspect as much as anything else. As for your horse, nothing will ever replace the one you knew and loved, but can you still go riding, can you volunteer at a stables and be around horses, can you use a pony and trap, can you get someone to take you if you can't do it yourself? There are ways to be around horses is what I am saying - and now you haven't got your job you can spend more time with them - that's even better! Look forward Ponigirl, not back, Look at the privilege you had to be part of your horse's life and he/she yours. Think of the great time you had with your horse and the fabulous memories he/she gave you and talk about him/her as if still here. That will make you smile. Look at the time you had in your job with pride but think also now of the blank canvas to shape your life the way you want it to go, the opportunities that now open up before you. By all means look back at your past life with pride and enjoyment but don't let yourself become embroiled in what might have been. Look at your whole life now as an opportunity and go and seize it. Interact with people and you will be amazed at what can happen. Good luck Ponigirl - I hope you can find it within yourself to mount an overwhelming challenge to the way you see things at the moment and come out smiling on the other side. Go and get that haircut, put on your best bib and tucker and feel proud of yourself - you have plenty to be proud about and I support you every step of the way! Macca

Hi, After an SAH it is not uncommon for the patient to be aggressive, to swear without embarrassment, to verbally hurt those around them - it isn't personal, it is just that you are there! I was just the same. I also told a nurse she was the most beautiful person I had ever seen - right in front of my sister and fiancee! I didn't know I was doing it and I only know now because the girls told me that is what I did. I still, to this day have no recollection of the event myself and wouldn't recognise the nurse if I fell over her (no disrespect intended). A SAH is a major event whatever other problems also exist, and its effects should never be underestimated. The extent of the injury and its effects vary from person to person, and because you can't physically see it like, say, a scar, or plaster of Paris on a broken arm, witnesses seem to be amazed to realise there is still a problem. Internal injuries, not just brain injuries, often hide serious problems, so please be tolerant of unusual behaviours' (I say unusual rather than odd because of the connotations people put on that word) as they are not intended even though they may feel hurtful at the time. Once you understand the problem you can exercise this tolerance. It is intolerance from people further afield, outside of the hospital environment who can be even more hurtful because they can't see the injury, don't want to know about it and therefore can't be tolerant of it. When you tell them they either don't believe you or say a rather trite 'Oh sorry, I didn't know' and then carry on as though nothing has happened and then avoid you like the plague in future! You've gone through a terrible time and if we can do anything to help, we're always here. I wish you both well. Macca

Welcome to BTG! I wish you'd found us earlier so we could have helped more when you really needed it! You've clearly been through the mill not only with the SAH but also the rheumatoid arthritis, which I know is a severe form of arthritis (I have family history of it). Reading between the lines you've had little time to think about yourself and what you have done so far for your wife is little short of miraculous. A number of us have had the onset of a SAH where the symptoms have not been recognised immediately by those around us and it is certainly an area where public health messages could be improved along the lines of the Face, Arms, Speech, Time campaign for Strokes. None of those things applied to me - I was just lucky I realised I needed help and called for it before I fell unconscious and there was someone within nearby reach. Please keep posting, particularly if you need help or support, don't keep battling in isolation or bottling it up - we all need each other! I wish you both well. Macca

Hi Elizabeth, Your husband is obviously a highly skilled, conscientious and talented man. A professional man. He has taken a knock (metaphorically speaking) to his brain and so has his self esteem and his confidence. Time to take a 'time out' now, I believe, and apply a professional approach to his recovery. Would he be telling his own patients to go back to work almost straight away? Probably not, so why does he expect to do this himself? I sense a yearning to be back to normal as though this event never happened. I've been there too, it's a natural reaction to what has happened to him, and there is no doubting that it is difficult to accept that things might not be the same again, or at least not for a considerable time. It is also a difficult time for you and I recognise that, we all have families too and they go through the mire with us but from a different angle. In my experience, the best way to deal with this situation is to meet it head on and build from the base you now start from. You may have to re-adjust things, how much work, shorter hours, lifestyle, do things differently and so on. It's not easy but it can be done. Sometimes you have to go a couple of steps back before you can move forwards again. I used to consider that my job was part of who I was. I re-appraised my situation after my SAH and my return to work and I turned my life on its head. Although I returned to work and was able to do it I found that not only was I being asked to do what I did before but more as well. I know your husband joined his profession to help others and that is very laudable indeed. However, in my opinion, you can only help the weak from your own position of strength. You can't do it if you have been weakened yourself, no matter how much to think you can. So take stock, allow a good period for recovery and reflection and work out what you both can do and want to do from here. I decided what I was being asked to do was not acceptable to me any more. I now wanted to 'work to live' not 'live to work.' Then I became much calmer, because I realised I was in charge of my own destiny and was in control of my own life. I was no longer at the beck and call of others. Of course there was resistance and pressure from others, in particular those over me, but I stood firm and took the decision to leave last April. They have still not replaced me and now have to try and buy in my skills from outside, but those I am still in touch with say it is not the same without me there on a day to day basis. So in me, those managers have lost a very experienced and skilled man, though I say it myself, because they wouldn't work with me to find a solution that was acceptable. But I am in control, I am the one making decisions about my life and I could not be any happier than I am now. So you will come out the other side of this and hopefully feel all the better for it. Whether your husband went unconscious or not isn't the issue for me, it's the effect the event has had on his life and it is the decisions you take now to move forwards that are important. As I said before, I can only offer my own experiences and I hope they are of help to you. With hindsight I might have done some things differently or in a different order, who knows, but no-one ever said life was easy! I wish you well and I am sure you will make the right decisions in the end. Good luck. I wish you the very best and I hope your husband makes a full a recovery as possible. Macca

Elizabeth, Firstly, welcome to BTG. A remarkable recovery by any means but it is still very early days. Some of us have taken years to get back to any sense of normality - over four in my case. I can only offer my own experiences. I have taken early retirement (I was within a year of reaching retirement age anyway) since my job was also highly stressful (I wasn't a doctor) and it has often been suspected but never proven that stress could be a factor in terms of causation. Short term memory loss is a bugbear and I still suffer with it to some degree but it is not nearly as bad now as it was when I first became ill, so it can get better over time. Fatigue is also a problem and there is no short term answer to this one - the brain and the body simply have to heal and it takes a long time - different for everyone. The other big problem is that, as you rightly point out, he doesn't look as though there is anything wrong with him - that is so true and is very difficult to get across to other people - the only answer to that is that he - and you - have to communicate that to everyone you come into contact with. It's like looking at an automobile, not realising there isn't any engine in it until you try and start it! Short term memory goes along with concentration - and his will be in short supply at the moment (hopefully, over time it will get better but there aren't any short cuts, it's a tough road to travel) - but the good news is that long term memory is often unaffected. So in the short term - write things down and go over them constantly/regularly and hope that they will be committed to memory. Go over text books and try to re-learn some things you may have forgotten, even if you think you knew them. Sometimes it will work and sometimes it won't but its worth a go. Also do it in short bursts, don't do too much at once. Being a surgeon means he has to be firing on all cylinders - and he is only a short time into recovery now, maybe a radical re-think may be the best option for you, in the short term at least. I wish you well with whatever decisions you make. Good luck. Macca

Hi Iola, You sound a lot calmer these days and like using that little word 'No' seems to have had a big, positive effect on your life. Down days are natural and nothing to be unduly worried about - I still have them now and again - but you come through them! Learning to be comfortable with yourself is a big thing in healing after SAH - well done you for getting there. You seem to have made so much progress since you first joined this site. Well done, I am extremely happy for you - and for your family, who must now be seeing more of the real you again, which is absolutely first class! Magical stuff! Macca

Hi Nat, This isn't that unusual! As Carolyn says above - it's your brain - the engine of your being! Your body has its own way of letting you know you've gone too far, too fast - and this is it. However. if it is now persistent and/or it worries you, get back to the hospital that treated you - sometimes GP's don't know enough - the brain is a 'Specialism' not a 'General Practitionerism' - so see the people that know about it and they are at the hospital not the GP's. Don't let your imagination run away with you - it will feel like one step forward and two back sometimes. Yes sometimes people have had more coils put in but, although possible, that's relatively rare. Don't bottle it up though, share your problems with someone and go back to see about it if the problem is persisting - in the meantime, slow down a bit, rest properly and stay hydrated. Let us know what you decide and what happens - we're with you! Macca