The Week that Changed my Life

Thank you for visiting my blog. I hope to share my story with all of my friends and family here with this blog. I would also like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the prayers and help you guys have already done with my journey so far. I appreciate your help and support more than you know. Thank you everyone.

I have never truly shared the events that led up to me being taken to the hospital let alone my experience altogether. On the afternoon of Sunday, the 20th, my aunt picked me up and me and my cousins went on a vacation ending by attending one of my favorite artist’s concert. During this trip I got a chance to bond with my cousins that I have not been super close with. On Tuesday night we got a wonderful chance to attend the concert as a group and had a very entertaining time. While at the concert I happened to get a very bad headache during the opening act. I figured the headache was just from the sun shining in my eyes but once I felt the urge to puke and did so I was completely back to normal. I had thought that the headache was just a way for my body to show that I was getting sick. I did not think anything of it since it had occurred multiple times before.

On the morning of Wednesday May 23, 2018, we headed back to our day to day lives. As we headed home, I made plans with all of my friends as if I were going back to school the next day. As we arrived home, I said my goodbyes to all of my cousins that I went with and lastly my aunt who had planned the whole thing. I explained that I wanted to go see my mother at work. As I did so, my aunt strongly suggested that she just take me. I stated that I would be okay and that I would just walk there instead. I headed in the house and started unpacking and getting ready so that I could make the trip to my mom’s work. After I finished getting ready, I headed down the stairs to get a cup of water to take with me since I was not feeling good. As I started walking, I began getting a headache worse than before. As I walked, I threw up and then once again felt perfectly normal. As I arrived at her work, I made copies like any other assistant would. I continued by visiting my brother and sister. When I visited them, I showed my siblings pictures and videos from the concert. I also visited my old teachers. After that, I headed back to see my mother. As I was there, I complained of a headache so much that she asked a friend to come pick me up. I waited about ten minutes and then she met me out front.

On the way home all we did was talk about how annoying migraines are and she shared with me multiple experiences that she had. When I arrived home, I took some medicine, drank some water, and had something to eat. Then I headed upstairs to my parents’ bed and began watching How to Get Away with Murder. After I watched about twenty minutes of the show, I began to get really sick. I went into the bathroom and started puking everything I had eaten. I had thought that I was getting sick due to taking the wrong medicine. I got scared and quickly picked up the phone to call my mom. When she answered and asked what was going on, I said “something is wrong, I am really dizzy.” She told me to go lay down and told my brother to go get me some things. After the phone call I checked my temperature, and everything seemed to be perfectly okay.

By this time, I had begun to shed many tears and absolutely everything was spinning in complete circles. I decided to follow what my mom said and lay down, but little did I know that after that I would wake up three months later. I don’t remember anything past this point, but I do know about the things my parents have told me. Soon after, I fell asleep in my parent’s bedroom. My mom and younger sister arrived home later and they both sat at my bedside and watched me as I began to get even more sick. Everyone thought that I was dehydrated and sick from the concert. My mom returned back to work and came home later that evening. She kept checking on me throughout the evening for the next couple of hours. One of those times she noticed that I had gotten up to go to the bathroom. My dad got home from work later that evening and he came in to check on me also. They checked on me multiple times. The second time my dad checked on me I had completely changed positions in the bed. After he went down stairs to eat dinner, he checked up on me a third time and asked me where it hurts, and I replied by saying “it hurts everywhere.” He didn’t think anything of it since I had already explained to everyone that I really didn’t feel good. An hour passed and both of my parents attempted to move me to my bed for the night. I usually do some moving when I am responsive but as they moved me, they basically had to drag me. That was very concerning to them. When I got to my bedroom, I began puking again. My dad first called the advice nurse and explained what had happened and she suggested that he called 911. He then for the first time as a parent picked up the phone and called 911. He explained to them that I was probably just dehydrated from the concert and not to make a big scene. Seconds after, he hung up the phone, he heard the sirens getting closer. By now, my family had a line of neighbors at their front door.

When the crew arrived, my dad followed by showing them to my room where I was at. They began by checking all my vitals and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. They took me down to the ambulance and soon after, my dad followed. The crew said they would be taking me to Randall’s and my dad strongly asked them if we could go to Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center, since it was closer. The ambulance crew explained to my dad that they couldn’t take me there because I am a child and that Legacy would just send me to Randall’s. As we started our journey to Randall’s, one of the ambulance crew members that was sitting in the back with me attempted to put an I.V. into my forearm. I did not like that idea and as he was trying to place the I.V. into my arm, I continued to fight with him about it because I didn’t want to lay on my back.

As we arrived at Randall’s, they immediately took me to the emergency room. I miraculously happened to be the only one in the emergency room, so they quickly took me back to a room and started evaluating me. They could not figure out what was wrong because all my vitals came back good. They began by asking my parents a million and two questions. They followed by asking me if I had been drinking and when I replied by saying yes, they were very confused and hesitated to ask what I had been drinking. I yelled that I had been drinking water and that I needed to use the restroom immediately. You are probably wondering why I had talked if I was unconscious, good question, no one knows the actual answer to that. After that, I was taken to a cat scan to figure out what was wrong. My mom got the chance to come to the scan and quickly after we entered, she noticed the technician say something to the doctor. She found this very concerning and knew something was wrong. When we got back to the room, she explained to my dad what had happened.

Seconds after I came back to the room, the doctor came in and explained that I had bleeding on the brain due to an AV malformation and that I had a severe stroke. (An AV malformation is an abnormal and, therefore, “weakened” mass of blood vessels that direct blood away from normal brain tissue. These abnormal and weak blood vessels dilate over time. Eventually they may burst from the high pressure of blood flow from the arteries, causing bleeding into the brain. It is something that I was most likely born with. Some people walk around all their life without a problem and some people’s rupture without any reason whatsoever.)

He went on by saying that they needed to take me to an emergency surgery. I had to have three main surgeries to somewhat fix the problem. They quickly turned me over to my neuro surgeons, who had happened to be at the hospital. I got taken to the operating room and was waiting when one of my neuro surgeons began to get very impatient with having to wait for the proper amount of staff. She began pushing me into the O.R. to do my surgery. The first surgery was set in place to put tubes in my head to relieve pressure. After the surgery, I headed back to my room and waited for the next surgery to begin. I was taken to my second surgery which was set to stop the bleeding in my brain. Finally, I was supposed to have another surgery the next morning. By now, it was Thursday afternoon. One of my neuro surgeons came to check how I was doing on her way home and noticed that the pressure in my brain had started rising once again. I was taken to emergency surgery where they removed the AV malformation. The duration of the surgery was eight hours long and was very dangerous. Initially, the surgery was supposed to last twelve hours, but it was cut short because they needed to stop the bleeding that the AV malformation was creating as soon as possible.

My parents were given choices such as to leave it in and it had a high chance of rupturing again or they could take it out completely which as you can see was the choice they went with. All the doctors said that I would be nothing but a vegetable for the rest of my life. All we can do is hope for the absolute best and keep praying for recovery. Needless to say, it was a very scary and emotional week for all. (Btw for my hashtag you have to say the names of the first two letters. You can blame my dad for that because ever since I was a young girl he has called me “S”.”Y”.)

xoxo

Syd