Live SAH Support Meeting

[amexdm]

Hello all:

I attended a live SAH meeting two weeks ago and wanted to share some info from it. It is a nice group of people and nurses. It was in Ann Arbor and meets every two months. We missed our BTG Kris as she has moved. Missed you Kris.

The speaker was the local neurosurgeon at the hospital. He came in and just said he would like to answer any questions that we had. That was nice. Not many people asked so I stepped in and asked a few.

One person asked about recovery and he said about 4-6 weeks. He apparently was referring to some kind of open head injury that he treats. For SAH, he said 3-6 months. I asked about any correlation to leg pain and he said no.

One person asked about lifting and he said there should be no restrictions. I'm not sure I agree with him on that. My doctors told me to be careful lifting and not over 20 lbs. Anyone else heard different?

Last but not least, I asked him if there were any studies shown to be that an SAH would shorten the length of your life. I wanted to know badly. Everyone said yeah yeah, what about that? So he said there should be no reason that us SAH'ers shouldn't live a long happy life and it should not cause any future complications or shorten our life in any way. I'm gathering this is his professional opinion but I'll take it for now.

All I know is it was a 14 hour day between work and the meeting and it took me about two weeks to recover.

Thanks,

David

[Winb143]

David,

Phew, thanks for the good news.

Sorry it tired you out but you have made me one happy person ie relieved !!

My clinical nurse told my Family, in my words, I will live a normal life expectancy once over it. ie 102 years lol.

I made that up lol about 102.

Hope you have a good week David.

Love from

WinB143

[Macca]

Hi David and all,

I've not been on for a while, but this is good news to come back to and gives us something to hang our hats on. I asked my own surgeon in the aftermath of my operation two years ago and he said much the same thing - so that's two opinions. let's hope I'm still around when the next two come in ha ha!!

David, great to see you still on the ball and encouraging lively discussion and debate. Hope you are ok my friend!

Macca

[DawnS]

Hi David,

this is encouraging news! I hadn't heard about a limit to lifting in particular, but my GP did tell me I should stop attending the gym for the immediate future. This might have been a fatigue issue, or a balance issue? I've asked Andy the reason but he can't remember the reason either.

Dawn x

[jess]

Mine said I wouldn't have a shorter life through it so. Jess.xxx

[kpaggett]

Hey David.

I'm not sorry that I missed that meeting. He was my neurosurgeon: He did my two angios witch lead to no known cause for me. He had very much the same stats when I was his patient. I lifted weights at first only to pull joints out of their sockets. I don't think the professionals take into account that there are many tiny connections to many tiny muscles around the joints and mine had not recovered in '4-6 weeks' or whatever he said. MY Neuropsychologist said 2years. I found someone who had been put on a weight restriction here on BTG and then it clicked for me. I backed off the weights and felt a whole lot better. Even today, I carried my gym stuff and it pulled my shoulder low. My knees don't grind anymore when I walk though...so I can walk as long as I used to before SAH.

I found that the best people to answer my questions were other survivors and myself.

SAH is so devastating as it doesn't shorten our lifespan. So we get to live with it for many years. However, I'm glad I survived. I checked and someone that was in my condition in the ER had only a 20% chance of survival. How resilient We all must be!

~Kris