I SURVIVED!

THREE UNUSUAL MEDICAL EMERGENCIES, AS TOLD BY THE PEOPLE WHO NEARLY DIED FROM THEM

- BY Melody Wren

A RUPTURED BRAIN ANEURYSM

Here's a little-known but disturbing fact: According to the Brain Aneurysm Foundation, about 50 per cent of people who have ruptured brain aneurysms die, and 66 per cent of the survivors have major cognitive deficiencies from brain damage. Luckily, it is extremely rare for aneurysms to rupture-only 1 in 100 do. Unfortunately for me, mine did.

What happened? A decade ago, when I was 59, I woke up at our cottage on the Bruce Peninsula in Ontario, Canada, had a shower, made tea and got back into bed. Nestled in my happy place next to my sleeping husband, I read magazines and made notes for some travel writing I was doing. Suddenly, I felt a severe jolt of intense pain in my head. That was the last thing I remember before I lost consciousness. My husband woke beside me as I made "weird noises," as he said later. He tried to rouse me with no luck and called 911.

By the time I arrived at our small local hospital, I had regained consciousness. I was seen by a resident, who consulted her supervisor. After a few hours of routine tests, she told me I'd had a "migraine," and I was discharged with instructions to return in 48 hours if there was no change.

There was no change. And after a day and a half of agonizing pain, I told my husband, "Something is really wrong with my head." I didn't care that we hadn't waited the prescribed 48 hours; in order for me to be taken seriously and not fobbed off as a migraine victim, we returned to the hospital.

I was seen by a different doctor and got a CT scan. It showed dark residue below my brain, which was the iron from the haemoglobin of the blood that had leaked to that spot. I'd had an aneurysm, and it had burst. This was beyond my doctor's scope of care. "We need to get you to a hospital specializing in neurology," he said.