Emancipation of A Drama Queen

My step-dad collapsed at home Monday morning. He thought he was having a stroke (he’s only 49) and yelled for my mother to call 911. He was rushed to a local hospital where they found the aneurysm and bleeding in his brain. He was immediately airlifted to St. Joseph’s hospital in Phoenix where they have the Barrow Neurological Institute.

He was then sedated heavily and put under in order to drill a hole in the top of his head to drain the blood. At this point everyone was waiting for him to get his CT scan so they could find the exact location of the aneurysm and how to proceed to fix it.

The aneurysm was situated right between his eyes and notin the carotid artery. This was a good thing and apparently common. At this point the surgeons were trying to figure out if they could fix this aneurysm with a less invasive procedure or if they needed to actually cut the top of the skull and go in that way.

Fortunately, the less invasive procedure was possible and worked. They basically put a coil in the artery which stops the bleed but still allows blood through the artery. This is how it was explained to me so I can’t explain it any more than that. They insert something into the main artery which is down in the groin and then they work up through the arterial system into his head to insert this coil. It’s called an angeogram (sp?) and this type of procedure is common with heart patients. My father had this done a couple of times. I’m sure you can Google it.

Anyway, now, it is a wait and see thing. The procedure went well and he is doing good. He will be in the ICU for a minimum of two weeks. After that, we don’t know. The nurses said they just have to take it day by day. The recovery is a long process.

Everyone is doing fairly well and we are all helping where we can. My step-sisters are doing ok and actually helping my mom out a lot. They have kids and jobs and a lot of responsibilities that they have to juggle in the midst of all of this. So, I’m here to pick up where ever I’m needed. My step-dad’s mother lives with him and my mom and she is taking this quite hard, as you can probably imagine.

Now, it’s time to shower and head over to see my mom and step-dad.

Thank you for all of your prayers and thoughts. He seems to be doing really well so everything looks good.