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.
