When the going gets tough… the tough get going!

Submitted by Anonymous

September 3, 2010 was a normal day for me until I found myself in the hospital.  I don’t have much memory of that one month of my life.  Here is the account I have gathered after speaking to everyone involved.  The cleaning lady had come to me to get her check and she found me unconscious in my room.  She called 911 and my neighbor and I was taken to a nearby hospital.  I was having a Hemorrhage of Berry aneurysm causing a bleed in the brain.  The neighbor called my husband at work, who in turn called my mom!  During this commotion, I could mumble my brother’s cell phone to the ER doctor.  They could contact my brother since he was a physician in their network and able to recognize our last names and he rushed over.  I was taken to a bigger neurosurgery center where the surgeon performed a 14-16-hour long surgery which included a clipping of berry aneurysm and an arterial bypass.  I woke up from the surgery after 2 days and remained in ICU for 4 weeks. I also had a post-surgical complication, a blood clot in the legs. An IVC filter was also placed to prevent blood clots from traveling to the lungs. During all this time my mom stayed with me every day in the hospital and my husband and brother stayed for nights.  I don’t have much memory of the initial days except for lots of friends and extended family came to visit. I was very frustrated with being in a bed in that hospital for so long.  I even took off all lines and tried to go to a real toilet one day!  After a couple of weeks, I asked the surgeon to move me to a real room with a real bathroom where I could use the bathroom myself and take a real shower! She did!  I went through several therapy sessions during the day.  By that time, I had decided I was going to work hard with all therapists to get out of that hospital.  They were not going to find any reason to keep me there, not even for a chipped nail!  I was released after 1 week in a regular room.  At that time, I had decided nothing or nobody was going to break my spirit.  I had so many things left in my bucket list before I leave.  With hard work, I overcame all the side effects of that incident.  I also had a baby 2 years after this incident against all odds.  Most importantly, I got a dog for myself which I always wanted all my life.  With constant support (and nagging from family) to follow a strict regime of exercise and therapies, here I sit writing a story well worthy of a movie script!  When the going gets tough… yea the tough get going :-D