Sunday, February 27, 2011

The Lord Answers Prayers

Sorry I have not been as good latley on  updating you all on my latest brain anerysum status. We went to a brain anerysum specialist here in Utah last week. Each time we went to a dr/neologist/neosurgeon, etc we went to someone that knew more than the last each time, so each time we went we learned more, became more informed, etc due to the knowledge and level of the Dr. we were seeing. When we went to the brain anerysum specialist we thought we were going into schedule the acutal procedure/surgery called pipelining. However, we heard the exact opposite of what we thought we were going to hear.

He told us that due to the location of my anerysum on my brain that doing ANY procedure at ALL would be a HUGE risk, bigger than even leaving it alone would be. He said that if were to go in and try to meddle with it to fix it that I would have a bigger change of me having a stroke and or other complications than we would if were to just leave it alone. He also said that my anerysum is the type that only has a 1 in a 1000 chance of it acutally ruptering, and its not the type that leads to a stroke, I will have other symptoms not as scary... so that is awesome! So he said why fix it right now if its not broke, I have lived my whole life with it and been fine, besides my random seizure episodes I have I am totally fine. He told us to just to annual checks on it to see if it gets bigger or anything, so every winter I will get an MRI.

My problems are still there, I still have a brain anerysum and I still have siezures, however  I don't have to go through surgery and I will be ok! As far as my seizures go, I am suppose to monitor them, keep a log, and if they get worse they are going to put me on medication.

Of course I am happy with all of this and its secretly what I have always hoped for throughout this, but I was ticked a bit at first because I was frustrated that I had to go through all of this for pretty much nothing. It has been so hard emotionally, plus all the money, time and effort my parents put into it for nothing. Plus I quit my job in Cali, dropped everything in my life and moved back to Utah for nothing now..,

However I now know that everything happens for a reason, there is a reason I went through all of this, and maybe the lord just needed me back in Utah right now, so here I am to figure life out here. I just got a job working for a website company called Only Websites, I am the communication between the client and the web developer to make sure the client is happy and gets what they want. So far life is comming together still have a long ways to go, but I am going to be ok and everything really does happen for a reason.

Monday, February 7, 2011

It Changes Everyday...

Ok so litterally everything in my life is crazy right now.. and everyday the updates change for what they want to do about my anerysum. I guess my anerysum is very rare because of the location of the anerysum on my brain. It is litterally barried in the very back of my brain pretty deep, which means alot of the normal procedures that are out there to fix it are not the best for me and they have alot of risks due to the location of my anerysum... so it turns out they are not able to do the coiling procedure because of it...

However, they have to do something about it.. I want them to do something about it... It such a huge blessing that we even found the anerysum so we could fix it and do something about it... so many people have undiagnosed brain anerysums that rupture without warning that possibly lead to death.. so its AMAZING that we found it so that DOES NOT HAPPEN!! Therefore, we are going to take care of this! Luckily there is a brand new procedure especially for un-operable anerysums and rare cases which is what mine is it is called Pipelining: read this for an explanation of what the procedure is. http://www.mir.wustl.edu/graphics/assets/media/FocalSpotWinter2009/pipeline_FS_winter_2009_2010.pdf

It has a 93% success rate and is supposed to be a pretty easy procedure which is great! However, there is a catch... there is always a catch! It is not approved my the FDA in the United States yet, its a procedure that has only been around since 2007, so it only aproved in Europe so far!!! What the?? But no worries I guess they will be able to do it in Salt Lake, however the catch is my insurance wont cover it fully... ehhh feel so bad for my parents...Anywho we don't even know if they can do this procedure yet.. I have another appointment on the 18th of this month with a Europeon Dr. in Utah to see if he can preform it on me... cross your fingers!!

Long story short... I am moving back to Utah next week to take care of all of this.. It is just such a mess to keep flying back and forth and for me to keep taking a week off of work here in Cali to do that, plus I have no idea how long it will take to recover from the procedure and how intense it will be..I just need my parents right now, having their love and support has made this 10 times easier and I just need to be with them right now. I am going to miss Cali so much! it was almost 80 degrees outside today and its February it anybody loves that its me!!

Plus of course I am going to miss connections I have made here and my amazing sister Karisa, her husband Scott, and adorable niece Zoe, they are so great! Bitter sweet this whole expericence is! I will be ok this is a blessing in disguise and it will all work out I know it!!

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Update On My Crazy Life!

my marathon in life I am currently trying to finish!

Ok so if you have been following up with my crazy, drama life latley then you are well aware that I recently found out I have a brain anerysum due to what we found out to be called partial complex seizures, where I just blank out for 30 seconds or more kinda like I am there but I can't hear you or answer you.. its wierd..

Anywho, I went to Utah to get tests done recently for it to see how serious it is and what the options are to get it fixed. All the tests I had done for it are: MRI, EEG, and a procedure called an Angiogram. Let me tell you what none of these tests were fun by anymeans.. however they had to be done and it will all be worth it in the end.

Brain Anerysums are pretty serious if they rupture, they can  result in death... However it is a very low percentage that they actually rupture.. however that percentage grows by 2% each year I get older therefore it really is such a blessing that we found it when we did so we can fix it. The neosurgeon told us that if I was  90 years old and in a resthome he would not even have us do anything about it, but since I am so young and active and at child bearing age they say we should definatley do something about it so I don't have to worry about it.

Now keep in mind I had my angiogram test on Thursday and my neurologist and neurosurgeon appointments were not until Monday and Tuesday...So that means we had to wait the whole weekend in anticipation and worry to be able to get some answers and some peace of mind finally.. lets just say it was not an easy thing to do. I did get to hang out with friends in Utah which was nice, again I say bitter sweet.

I was worried about 2 things happening once I went to the appointments which are: loosing my license due to my siezures (people with seizures get their license taken away depending on how serious they are since it would be bad to be driving then have one) and the second thing I was worried about would be having to get brain surgery where they would have to shave my head..

The good news is.... I can keep my license and I can keep my hair... I do still have to get some type of surgery however I will explain... So the neurosurgeon said that due to the location of my anerysum it is in a way difficult spot to operate on and there would be alot of risks with it, so he did not want to do that...
so the second option is a procedure called coiling which is Coil embolization:  During this procedure, a small tube is inserted into the affected artery and positioned near the aneurysm. Tiny metal coils are then moved through the tube into the aneurysm, relieving pressure on the aneurysm and making it less likely to rupture. This procedure is less invasive and is believed to be safer than surgical clipping.

Therefore, it is basically like a tube inside my brain to protect the anerysum so if it ruptures it ruptures into the tube instead of directly effecting me. Yes it will still be scary and painful but it is so much better then having to get actual brain surgery and I get to keep my long hair! We are planning on doing this all before my insurance runs out in June.. so within the next month or so...


I want people to know that I will be ok there is light at the end of the tunnell, I still have no idea what this means exactley for my life right now, things are litterally crazy in my life right now with this and other things, but I will be ok. I have never read my scriptures and prayed so hard in my life as I had now, I honestly don't know what I would do without the church in my life and the support of my family and friends right now all of that makes this a whole mess so much easier to deal with, so I sincerely thank all of you for your thoughts and prayers!

Friday, January 21, 2011

Just What I Needed

Througout all I am going through I read this today and it helped me so much and I loved it, it really gave me the positive attitude and peace of mind I am in need of right now.


Read this if your in need of a little comfort and peace of mind

Here it is :
http://lds.org/general-conference/1992/04/patience-in-affliction?lang=eng

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Challenges

"Face up to fear, challenges are huge blessings" --Dove Chocolate Wrapper

So.......

Life has been not so great latley, I am going through a rough patch in my life.. was not even going to talk about it on here but I am in need to vent and get it all out, plus I don't think alot of people actually read my blog so why not? I am not going to post this on facebook and tell the world, I just needed to get it all out on help explain whats going on to loved ones not over text..

So.... its a way long, complicated story so get ready! Ok so I have had a wierd thing going on with me for about 3 years now but had no idea anything was really wrong with me until about 3 months ago.. It turns out I have been having a form of a seizure called an absence siezure. It is not the on the ground, shaking, totally out type of seizure you are thinking about, this is where I just black out and loose consciousness for about 30 seconds with my head down, if I am standing up at the time I never actually fall down, I just put my head down and look at the floor and am non responsive for about 30 seconds, then I have a hard time speaking for about 2 mins after like I stutter over my own words, but then after that I am totally fine for the rest of the day. It is so wierd, I had no idea what I look like and what happens to me when I do it. It has always happened to me when I am alone until recently.  My sister Karisa saw me have one at Target back in October and she told me that it definatley was not normal and I needed to get it checked out... so she told my mom and  my mom made me a Dr. Apointment. I only have insurance in Utah because I am still on my parents insurance and their insurance is not covered in Cali so I had to do everything while I was in Utah for the holidays. So my trip to Utah was bitter sweet. While I was in Utah I had to have an EEG and MRI tests to test the brain activity in my brain and look for other issues. We still dont have the results back from my EEG, however we do have the results from the MRI back and it turns out they found a small anerysum on my brain... yup exciting right?! UGG! what the heck does that mean right? Well I have no idea? but I do know that it is small so thats good and the location of it is not that serious so that is good as well.. they do want to run more tests on me though so I will be back to Utah at the end of January to do more testing, once again bitter sweet.We still don't have the results back from the EEG though so that maybe a whole nother issue and story..

I am normal, I feel normal, I feel fine, I just have wierd things that happen to me every 2 or 3 months that last about 30 seconds thats all. I have lived a normal life like this for 3 years now and I have been fine.  I don't think its a big deal, but yet again I am probably living in denail. I have no idea what the future holds for me and what they are going to do about any of this, however I do know that with the lord anything is possible. After the trials and tribulations come the blessings, this too shall pass... I tell myself those things everyday and pray and search my scriptures everyday for comfort. I know I will get through this and everything will be ok, I guess if your reading this just say an extra prayer for me, thanks.