Hi,
I have just joined this as my 65 year old Mum had a SAH 5 weeks all while on holiday in France. She had a temporary shunt inserted as soon as she got to hospital for hydrocephalus and was then taken by helicopter to another hospital for coiling of her aneurysm. She spent 6 days in an induced coma and started waking up on her birthday, as you can imagine this was the best birthday present ever! We as her family had the most agonising 3 weeks waiting to see if she would have any deficit from the initial bleed or vasospasm. It appears Mum was one of the lucky ones as her brain appears largely unscathed and her personality doesn't seem to have changed, although I know we ha e a long journey ahead. One of the first things she asked me was if I had seen her in a coma, when I said yes she said 'oh sweetheart I am so sorry', which sums mum up - always thinking of other people. My Dad is a GP and Mum used to be a nurse so I think this made it harder as they were acutely aware of what was happening - my brother, sister and I didn't really understand the gravity of it although a few google searches during the darkest hours were probably not helpful. It was just hard as we had little info to go on as none of the doctors spoke much English and we only know a-level French which didnt include neuro surgery vocab!
Mum was discharged home after 3.5 weeks and is doing ok. She is still v much bed bound and has daily headaches and fatigue but can walk the short distance to and from that bathroom. I guess this fatigue is to be expected after such a knock to the brain and being in bed for 5 weeks.
We have had to call an ambulance twice since she's been home. Once because she had a v severe headache (she couldn't compare it to the original bleed as doesn't remember any of it) but was taken to hospital and had a scan which was fine. Then today she had some chest pain and jaw pain - we called the GP who advised to call 999 as a precaution. They did and ECG which was normal. I just wondered if anyone else had experienced this jaw pain (i have read this can be common after a craniotomy but she had the coiling op so not sure if this would apply?)
Also, she has double vision and headaches at the moment and we have been putting an eye patch on each eye got 2 hours before swapping it over which seems to help.
I am basically looking for any reassurance as we have been so frightened by the events of the last month. I know we are so very lucky to still have Mum and just hope she goes on to make as full a recovery as possible.
Thank you for reading this!