Annie/Coileen

There have been quite a few questions from friends, family, etc...as to what procedure I had this past Friday. I figured I would give the full background as to take the scariness away. About 6 years ago, I had about a week's worth of monster headaches (literally knocked me to the ground.) Through a bunch of tests, they realized I had an aneurysm in my brain that Cullen, JLo, Cracky and I named "Annie." Ironically enough, the headaches had NOTHING to do with the aneurysm. The size of the aneurysm at the time was 2.2 mm and they don't start to worry about the size until it gets above 5 or so mm, so I wasn't in any immediate danger.

An aneurysm was described to me as a blister on a hose (the blister being the aneurysm and the hose being the blood vessels in my brain). If too much blood gets in the aneurysm that is what causes a rupture (but again, I was no where near that danger...). The procedure they decided to do 6 years ago was called a "coiling." This is where the name "Coileen" comes from :) What that means is they make a finger nail size incision in my groin and send a mini (and I mean mini) tube up my arterial vein with a coil in it (this is by no means the technical description). The coil wraps around the blister/aneurysm and stops the blood flow and the idea is eventually the aneurysm shrivels up and goes away due to lack of blood. They thought the surgery was a success the first time they did this. I had multiple follow-up angiograms and thought everything was fine...well, anyone that knows my medical history, knows I don't do anything easily ;)

I went back in for what I thought was going to be my last angiogram about a month ago and found out I had re-growth in my original aneurysm and the aneurysm was about 3.1mm in size. The doc explained that regrowth only happens in about 7% of coiling procedures. One of the doc's theories as to my case was due to the hormones caused by two pregnancies that could've caused re-growth or also due to the location of the aneurysm compared to the vessel. He couldn't say anything concretely because there is so little research done for someone my age, body type, two pregnancies, etc... Either way, I had to have another "coiling" procedure and again, I am a complete anomaly because I am still his youngest patient.

I headed back to Abbott on Friday morning and the surgery was a success! When I came to after the surgery, the nurses were shocked because I came out of the anesthesia a good hour before they thought I would and I was also completely coherent. Little did they know I am a pro at this surgery thing. The doc added two coils for extra support/coverage and said that technology is 10X better this time around so he is confident that they were able to get at everything. I got to the hospital about 6am on Friday and got home about 2:30pm yesterday and was SO ready to come home.

One humorous side to the story is normally they just stitch up the incision point in the groin and make the patient take it easy for the next week or so. Well, apparently the doc knows me well enough now to know staying still for a week would be next to impossible. As he put it, "instead of worrying about you, I just simply stitched your vein shut instead of just the skin..."

Anyway, I feel great and the doc is confident that everything went really well, so no reason to be freaked out and I now have three coileens in my head :) And hopefully this time around Annie stays away...