What is a brain aneurysm?

According to the National Institute of Health's website, an aneurysm is a widening of a blood vessel where the vessel walls are weakened. The NIH website says, "If an aneurysm ruptures, pain, low blood pressure, a rapid heart rate, and lightheadedness may occur. The risk of death after a rupture is high."

The day that my uncle's aneurysm ruptured the normalcy of life in my family--I will call it A-Day--my uncle "Jared" was at work. He builds fences with his grown son, Leroy, and another man. On the way home, my uncle complained about not feeling well, and my cousin says that he wasn't very awake.

When they got home, my cousin Leroy went in the house to shower. My Uncle Jared's youngest son is six. I will call him Charlie, to protect the privacy of a minor. Charlie once described the day that he found his dad sleeping in the truck and not waking up. He went in and said to his mom, "Hey, Mom. Um, Dad needs some Tylenol." Thinking that Charlie was running an errand for his dad, my Aunt Jewel sent a bottle of Tylenol outside with Charlie.

Charlie says that when he got back outside, Uncle Jared was still not waking up, but now it was worse. Now Uncle Jared was vomiting. Charlie was a smart boy: he ran inside and found Aunt Jewel.

"Mom, I think Dad is really sick."

"What do you mean, honey? Is that why he asked for Tylenol?"

"Well, no, you see... well, he didn't ask for Tylenol. I got it for him. But c'mon you should come help him. You're a nurse, you can help him."

Aunt Jewel probably said something like, "Well, I am not a nurse yet, I have to take three more weeks of classes and then pass a test." But Charlie was right, she should be able to do something to help.

When she got to Jared she recognized immediately that he was unresponsive. He wasn't waking up, his eyes were dilated. On a hot day in July, her mind instantly went to the heat, either heat stroke or heat exhaustion. She yelled for Leroy to come help her get Jared into the house. Only you have to remember that Jared works construction, is built like a brick and as heavy as a sack of them. An unresponsive sack of bricks is hard to get from a truck to a house, so Leroy ended up throwing Jared over his shoulder and getting him back into the truck with the air on.

Aunt Jewel called an ambulance.

Over the course of the night, Uncle Jared was sedated, intubated, flown from the Quad Cities to Iowa City, given an MRI in both hospitals, and finally taken into surgery. We sat around and Googled "brain aneurysm" and realized that "The risk of death after a rupture is high." There was nothing we could do but wait, and wait, and wait.

Next time, I will tell you about the procedure the doctors performed and the effects of having a "brain drain" or a tube hanging out of your head. Yep, it is just as pretty as you are picturing right now...

My Plan for Research

I will read. I plan to use health websites that have information about symptoms, treatments and recovery. I imagine that WebMD will be a place to start, but that I will also read more specifically on stroke prevention websites, concussion awareness/advocacy websites, and hospital or university websites that specialize in brain surgery and neuroscience.

I will interview. I want to interview members of my family who took care of my uncle in the hospital and are continuing to do so now that he is home. I want to interview my uncle about what he thinks about having to relearn his memory. I also hope to interview some of the experts that are helping him with therapy.

I will observe. I will go with my aunt to a family member support group and see if our experiences fit into the norm, or if there are other things that I should be researching. I will observe therapy sessions when I can to see how they are helping rebuild my uncle's thinking patterns. I will observe my uncle and how his reactions, questions and thinking may change over the course of the semester.

Why I'm Interested

My cousin Jordan was sitting in a wheelchair with his laptop in his lap. My cousin Harry was curled up on the floor with Netflix streaming Spiderman. A hospital is hard

place for a six year old to be at 4:00 in the morning. Other cousins were littered all

around the hallway--there was no space in the waiting room for the ICU.

Four doctors and one bed raced past us and around the corner.

"That was him!"

"Thank God."

The surgery really hadn't taken very long, only about 20 minutes after they got

started, but we had been at the hospital for hours. My visit started in the UI Emergency Room directly beneath where LifeFlight would land from Genesis West. My uncle's

hospital visit started at his house outside of Tipton when an ambulance arrived and

found him unresponsive. At the hospital, all of the tests came back normal. Several

hours later, a doctor at Genesis took a CT scan and found bleeding in my uncle's brain.

Even more hours later, he finally made it to the University of Iowa where they

would do brain surgery to drain the blood. A tube was in his brain for about a week, and during this time he slept mostly.

When the tube came out, we all had high hopes. That he would remember who we all were, that he would remember the date, that he would be able to go home soon.

He knows who we are.

He can read the date if he remembers where the calendar is, but he doesn't really remember where the calendar is.

He does know that there is a scar on his head, but he doesn't know why. We've

told him several times each day.

We are grateful that he is up and walking around, that he has his sense of humor, that he doesn't think he is living in the 80s (anymore--those were scary times when the tube was still in). But it has been nearly a month--two weeks at the University and now almost two weeks in rehab in Davenport, and he hasn't recovered fully. Sure, we see

improvements: he is awake for long periods, he recognizes a couple of his nurses, he

can tell us that the Band Aid on his arm is because they drew blood. But he can't

remember lunch, whether or not he even ate. He doesn't remember which dogs he has, the ones he talks about are all dead.

My questions over the course of this semester is to look into the causes of brain aneurysms, the immediate effects on the brain, and the long term impact, especially on memory. I want to know what the future may bring. I want to know how others have

done, what I should expect, and how my family should plan. I want to know what my

uncle's wife and three kids should know when they are making plans for their dad in the future.

And so I will investigate brain injuries, especially aneurysms.