the rest of the story

The afib stopped Friday late morning about 11:30, back to a sweet sinus rhythm, and I felt great all day until about 5:30, quarter to six when I was sitting on the couch and this feeling washed over me leaving me feeling light headed, or probably more accurate, a little disassociated with a weakness in my arms and legs and a feeling of things just not being right, this was not normal and I was not in afib. I told my husband I was feeling really weird. Do you need to go to the hospital he asked. Maybe I replied. So we got in the car and he took me to Memorial Hermann SW hospital in Houston which is where my electrophysiologist has his  practice in the Heart Rhythm Center there on the campus. It took about 45 minutes to get there and on the way I texted both my kids and Sarah who had just left work and was about 10 minutes away said she’d meet us there. 

Sarah was there and waiting when Marc dropped me off at the ER and went to park the car. We walked in and I told the woman at the intake that I might be having a heart attack or heart related problem. First thing they did an EKG and took my blood pressure and told me to wait til they called me. Then they took blood and urine. Back to waiting. Then they did a CAT scan of my head and neck. Back to waiting. Then they did a chest x-ray. Back to waiting. By now the disassociation and weakness had passed. Then they called me again and took me back to an actual room where they took my blood pressure again and set an IV. Is that really necessary I asked. Yes, in case we need to blah blah blah. But then she went on to say that they don’t put the IV in at intake because drug addicts who have collapsed veins will come in and complain about something, get the IV and then leave and use the IV to get high. 

Sarah was with me during all these previous tests and once in the room she went and fetched Marc from the waiting room. They took me back for another CAT scan with contrast (injected dye in the IV) and then we waited again for the results of all the tests. The PA came in with all the results, heart fine and strong, lungs great, no sign of heart attack or stroke, arteries clear, also no explanation for the pain in my back Tuesday or the disassociation and weakness that sent me to the ER. So all that was fine but…the CAT scan with contrast showed “Mildly tortuous basilar artery without significant artherosclerosis or narrowing. Focal ectasia or fusiform aneurysm involving the basilar tip measuring 5 mm.” So, I have an aneurysm. Yay me!

By now it’s about 3 AM, the doctor wakes up the neurosurgeon to see what he wants to do so they admit me for an MRI on Saturday and I can either stay in the hospital til Monday when he can do a cerebral angiogram or go home and arrange the procedure as an out-patient. Sarah and Marc went home and I got up to a room about 3:30 when they put a heart monitor on me, blood pressure cuff and the finger thing for blood oxygen level, took more blood, attached a drip to the IV. I might have dozed off and on for a couple of hours and then around 7 AM they did an echocardiogram which was kind of cool. I could see my heart beating and inside it at the valves opening and closing. The tech took a bunch of pictures and measurements of the inside of my heart. 

Finally the neurologist’s assistant came in and interviewed me and explained the procedure for the MRI and what they would be looking for. If the MRI was “clean” as in no blood or seepage in my brain, they would do a cerebral angiogram where they would insert a camera into the artery in my groin and snake it up into my brain to get a good look at the aneurysm and then decide if surgery was necessary or just to keep an eye on it. Whatever that means. How do you keep an eye on something in my brain that you can’t see.

Then they did the MRI which was an experience all on its own. First I laid down on the table they would insert in the machine, then put ear plugs in my ears and a bolster under my knees for comfort, covered me with a warm blanket and rolled me to the machine where they put dense but soft foam up against both sides of my head to prevent me from moving it which further dampened my hearing, put a plastic sort of cage over my face, told me not to move my head, and rolled me far enough in so that my head and neck could be viewed. I knew there would be loud thumping and there was that but also all sorts of other percussion sounds. Ten minutes later it was over.

About an hour later the neurologist came in, MRI was clean and I could stay til Monday for the angiogram but if the surgeon had an emergency it might not get done that day or, because both the neurologist and the neurosurgeon were confident that the aneurysm was stable for now, I could go home and schedule it with his office within the next two weeks.

By now I’ve had almost no sleep since Thursday night, I’m uncomfortable, I have a headache, and I’m tired of being poked and prodded so I opted to go home. Sarah came and picked me up and I got home about 6:30, went to bed at 7:30, woke at 9:30 to scarf down two pieces of pizza and take my meds and went back to bed and slept til 7:30 this morning.

And no, the aneurysm was not the cause of any of the weird symptoms or feelings. They couldn’t tell me anything definitive about them but speculated that the pain in my back was probably related to the intense afib episode I was having and perhaps the weird feeling was also related to having been in afib for 65 hours straight even though it had stopped by then.

So yeah, I’ve got a small aneurysm in my brain which is scary as fuck.

Thank you all of you for telling me to get thee to the ER and ramping up my fear even though, as it turns out, I wasn’t having a heart attack. It might never have been discovered otherwise. And I might have lived a very long life with it and never knowing…or not. It’s the ‘or not’ part that now hangs over me. 

I’m trying not to think about it because when I do, well, I just don’t want to go there. When aneurysms blow they are almost always fatal.

Fun times, right?