Ignorance is Bliss

This picture was taken on December 2, 2023. We went to see Trolls Band Together in the movie theater! This was the first day of what would become the worst headache of my life and 3 days later I would be unresponsive in the trauma center of Morristown Medical Center.

I remember a few meetings on Monday, December 4th, and Tuesday. I also remember that I cooked a terrible pasta dinner for Jackie and I on Tuesday night because James had a dinner in the city. One of the last things I remember is that my headache was so bad that I asked Jackie if we could read books in my bed because I felt so terrible and when she asked if she could sleep there I said ok because I didn't have the energy to argue with her. James came home and I think he would admit that he was a bit annoyed to find Jackie in our bed. He ended up waking both of us up in order to get Jackie back to her bed, which I remember annoyed me. I was pushing with my right hand against my right forehead because that is where it hurt so badly, then I finally fell back asleep.

You know sometimes how you have a dream that later sort of becomes reality and you question whether you are clairvoyant or just happened to dream about something?

At first I thought I was having one of those dreams, everything in my future contained a hospital and that I was the patient in the hospital. And I couldn’t open my eyes or wake up, but I could tell I was in a hospital.

On December 8^th, in the evening, I opened my eyes and saw a person in royal blue scrubs who told me I was in Morristown Hospital and that I had a series of seizures because of a bleed in my brain. I closed my eyes again. I opened my eyes I saw a person in light blue scrubs who told me that the thing in my brain that bleed should be removed eventually. I closed my eyes again. I opened my eyes, I saw James with reddish, teary eyes looking at me and holding my hand and my Mom was there too. (According to James and Mom, I actually woke up on December 7th, but I have no memory of that day or any of the interactions I had with people.)

James says we all went together when I got transferred from the surgical ICU to Kahn 5 (the neural floor) but I don’t remember much except for being in a bed on an elevator. Once I got to Kahn 5 on December 9^th I slowly improved each day, they took out my catheter, they had me do a speech test (I don’t remember but apparently I failed it) so I had to do a second one, I got the video EEG removed, I got to walk, I finally got to shower and on December 11^th I got to eat, walk with a walker, go down some steps, and then go home!

James says around midnight on December 5th I had my first seizure. He googled what a seizure was. He looked at me, my eyes rolled back into my head and that was the last time he saw my eyes until December 7^th. I then had 3 more seizures, I peed myself in our bed, I threw up on myself. Sammy and Pepper (our cat at the time, more on that later) continued to sleep next to me. James called 911. In 5 minutes, cops and EMTs were in our house doubting whether it was actually a seizure. Then I had one in front of them, another in the ambulance, and another in the ER (the one in the ER they characterized as tonic clonic). Jackie as per usual, slept through everything and woke up as the ambulance drove away with me inside (thank goodness!). James asked her to get dressed, then he took Sammy out and packed a bag of clothes for me.

Then they both went to the ER. The nurse in the ER put them in a private waiting room (children under 12 are not typically allowed in the hospital) and the doctors would come in to give them updates. The nurse got Jackie an Elsa blanket and a bracelet making kit. She made me a bracelet. James made me a bracelet. I’ve worn the bracelets almost every day since December 11, 2023.

In the end I would find out that I have a cavernous malformation (collection of blood vessels) in my brain that has likely been there my whole life or a large portion of it. Some cav mals (as the neuro folks call it) never bleed, some bleed and go away, mine could have bled at any time but happened to bleed that night while I was in bed- not horse back riding, not driving Jackie alone somewhere, not on one of the many trips we take, or while James was away.

This health crisis was life changing and I would later decide to take some valuable lessons from it, but there was a fair amount of darkness before the dawn.