The Ghost Of Aneurysms Past
Yes this really is a scan of Kim’s brain! The berry
aneurysm is in the centre of the image.
When she begun the road to recovery, she wrote several lengthy posts about the experience, and pressed me to pen some thoughts of my own about her ordeal and how it impacted me. I’d always hesitated in the past, partly because I’d never posted something that personal to this blog, but mostly because I was just lazy.
As we pass the one-year anniversary of this event, Kim asked me again to describe the experience from my perspective, and this time I complied. As I write this down, 12 months later, my recall of the incident is as if it occurred yesterday.
Friday, 4pm: Readings bookstore
I was shopping for a gift at a bookshop when my phone rang. It was to be the first of many phone calls in the next 24 hours.
I didn’t answer it in time, so I ducked outside to listen to the voicemail message that the person had left. The message was from a gentleman named Phil, who was calling from Bunnings. Initially I thought it might have been something to do with some wooden blinds we’d purchased, but that was months ago. No, Phil was calling me to tell me that I needed to collect Scout from childcare today. Something about Kim fainting and being sent to hospital in an ambulance, “probably the Austin.” He didn’t leave a number. That was it.
My reaction to hearing this news was not one of panic. I’m not a person who jumps to conclusions or worst-case scenarios, so I wasn’t terribly worried. I didn’t know any details, so why assume the worst, right? It was hot, Kim dislikes the heat, so perhaps she’d had a mild case of heat stroke or something. It was all good. Sure, I couldn’t attend work drinks that night like I’d planned to, but Scout would be happy to see me, and Kim would be all right once she’d cooled down.
Well, actually, no.
I called Scout’s childcare centre next, and left a message that Scout would be collected a little later than usual. It turns out they were on the phone to me at the same time, leaving a similar message to the one Phil had just left. Evidently Kim had given them the number for Scout’s childcare centre, so she was obviously coherent, right?
Well, barely.
I climbed on my bike and began riding to the childcare centre. More messages. I pulled over to speak to someone from my office. Phil was both enterprising and diligent—he’d called them as well.
Friday, 5.30pm: Scout’s Childcare Centre
I collected Scout and explained as best I could that Mum was in hospital, but that she was going to be OK and we’d hopefully see her soon. I had no idea, but what else do you tell a three year old when it’s about her mum? Actually, now that I think about it, I probably would have said the same thing regardless of her age.
I phoned one of our neighbours with whom we are close friends. Neither Kim nor I have any family in Melbourne, but Jay and Narelle are infinitely reliable and the next best thing. They kindly invited us to eat with them that night, so that I had one less logistical hurdle for the evening. I was eager to locate which hospital Kim had been sent, and to speak with her, so I agreed.
Friday, 6.30pm: Dinner With The Neighbours
Locating which hospital Kim had been sent took hours. Phil had mentioned the Austin, so by this stage I was on first-name basis with the staff in the Emergency ward there, I’d called them that often. Each time, the response was the same: they had no patient by that name. After a while I suspected that perhaps she’d been sent somewhere else.
I tried the Alfred. No luck. I tried the Northern Hospital. Nope. What the hell? I was starting to get impatient. Not worried, just impatient. I did the rounds of phoning the emergency wards at those hospitals again. Still nothing.
By this stage I was starving. Scout was happily playing with the neighbours’ kids and had eaten, but I’d been on the phone non-stop since we got there. I took a half hour out to eat some of the delicious BBQ dinner that my thoughtful neighbours had prepared.
I then tried to get hold of someone who worked for the St Johns Ambulance service. It seemed crazy—nobody had access to any records of which patient had been sent where. It felt borderline ridiculous.
“Dial 000. They’re the only ones who will have a record of that,” one of the St Johns administrative staff told me.
It never occurred to me to do that—I’d had it drilled into me as a kid that calling that sacred number should only ever be done in the case of an emergency. I didn’t want to waste anyone’s time with what seemed a trivial matter—locating my wife. But I didn’t have any options, so I did it. The voice on the other end was completely devoid of any emotion or enthusiasm. I can only assume they were in the “efficiency zone.”
“Police, Fire or Ambulance?”
“Um, actually I’m trying to find my wife. She was sent to hospital in an ambulance, but I don’t know which one and can’t …”
I was transferred mid-sentence to someone who was, thankfully, not “in the zone.” They asked a few questions about where Kim was picked up from, and could deduce where she had been sent pretty quickly.
“She’s at the Royal Melbourne.”
The RMH! Of course—the one hospital I’d neglected to include on my list when ringing around. I called them, and was finally put on the line with my wife.
“You’re a difficult woman to track down,” I joked.
There was no joviality in her response. “I’m at the hospital. I fainted at Bunnings. You have to get Scout.” She was wincing as she spoke—it was clearly an effort to talk. This was the first indication I had that there may have been something more going on here than just a spot of overheating. My “it’s probably nothing, it’ll be fine,” attitude suddenly went out the window. I needed to see her immediately.
“It’s OK, babe. She’s here. We’re at Narelle’s. She’s eaten dinner. She’s fine.” I assured her.
“I have to go. I have a headache.”
I thought about trying another joke to keeping her spirits up, but I decided against it. She wasn’t in the mood for conversation.
“It’s OK. Don’t worry about it. I’ll come in and see you soon.”
Ah yes: getting to the hospital. I couldn’t very well drive in to visit her—she’d left the car in the Bunnings car park.
Friday, 8pm: RMH Emergency Ward
I mentioned that these neighbours of ours are dear friends and reliable souls. Well, I’ll reiterate that fact again. They are rockstars. We are massively grateful for their help over this weekend. Jay drove me in to the RMH while Narelle put Scout to bed in her front room. We would both end up eating dinner at their place for the next three nights, and Scout would sleep there for the next two.
Kim lay in her bed in the emergency ward, with her eyes shut. She wasn’t asleep, but she was barely conscious. I didn’t realise at the time that she was suffering from the most enormous headache that you could ever have. A blood vessel in her brain had burst and leaked some blood into part of her brain that wasn’t supposed to have any blood in it. That hurts like a bastard. Apparently. Kim mumbled a couple of words to me, but basically said nothing.
The emergency staff members were both helpful and matter-of-fact. She’d had a CT scan but they couldn’t see anything, so she would soon be having a second one. It would take 45 minutes or so. I used the opportunity to get a cab to Bunnings to collect the car. I took Kim’s bag with me, as it contained the car keys as well as her wedding rings, which the emergency staff had placed in a sealed bag for me.
Friday, 9pm: Bunnings
My cab driver was Chatty McChatsky. Funnily enough, I wasn’t really in the mood as I was kind of preoccupied. He asked about my plans for the weekend:
“I don’t really know, mate. My wife is in hospital and I don’t know what’s wrong with her. I just want to go pick up my car.”
The rest of the trip was quiet. He was a decent bloke and told me “I hope your girlfriend is OK,” when we arrived at Bunnings. I felt like my world was starting to spin out of control, but it wasn’t his fault. I wasn’t rude to him, but I was probably quite short. I remember giving him quite a large tip, not because he’d earned it, but because it was just quicker to hand him a $50 note than wait around for change.
I had no trouble finding the car. Kim had scored a park right near the entrance to Bunnings, a highly coveted spot. I remember thinking that she would have been proud of herself with that park. (She told me later that she was indeed.)
Friday, 10pm: RMH Emergency Ward
I drove back to the hospital, where Kim had a second CT scan. At this stage the doctors had ruled out a standard migraine, and suspected an aneurysm, but couldn’t confirm anything until they’d performed an angiogram. When they wheeled her off, I jumped onto Wikipedia again.
I’d heard the terms angiogram and aneurysm, but didn’t really have a good understanding of what either term meant. I consequently used up my phone’s measly 10MB data plan from Telstra reading about angiograms and aneurysms on Wikipedia (note: I’ve since switched to Three mobile, and am much happier with my 1GB plan!).
The gravity of the situation began to sink in. When Kim’s doctor asked Kim to sign her agreement to the procedure (a laughable process given she would have signed anything in the state she was in) he didn’t mince his words.
“If she has an aneurysm, which we’re pretty sure she does, then that’s a ticking time-bomb in her head. We’ll probably need to operate immediately. There are a couple of specialists reviewing Kim’s scans, and the surgeon may come in tonight if he needs to.”
Naturally, this wasn’t terribly comforting news. I called Kim’s parents and told them everything that I knew. Then I called my parents. I’d been brave as I relayed the details to my parents in law. I wanted them to feel informed but take comfort that I was handling the situation as best I could.
When I spoke to my own mother, however, I didn’t feel any such obligation. I cried. That doesn’t happen very often. I was faced with a very real possibility that Kimberley would be checking out of this world today, without any real warning. I was scared. I’d begun thinking through the prospect of being a single parent, of what changes I would need to make to juggle work, childcare … how I could possibly explain something like this to my daughter? And my parents were 800kms away.
My mobile phone bill each month is usually under $50. Because of the number of calls I made that night to keep friends and family in the loop, my phone bill for February was $273.62. I didn’t really care at the time. I still don’t. You do what you have to when you’re in the moment.
Saturday, 12.00am: Neuroscience HDU (High Dependency Unit)
Kim’s angiogram confirmed the existence of an aneurysm in her frontal lobe, and with this revelation came a whole new level of detail and understanding—partly thanks to Wikipedia, but mostly thanks to the staff in the emergency ward. I felt incredibly well informed, not least because of the images from her angio that I was shown, depicting the inner workings of Kim’s brain in all its full-colour gory detail.
The registrar on duty explained to me why Kim’s aneurysm had to be clipped with an operation (yes, they cut her head wide open to fix the leak), rather than being “coiled” using a less intrusive procedure. The aneurysm was too close to an adjacent vessel, and coiling would have risked doing damage to that vessel. He told me that they were confident that they could keep her stable overnight, but that her operation was take place tomorrow morning, around 10am.
I asked loads of questions, and not once did I receive an answer that wasn’t to my satisfaction. I was stunned at how competent and caring everyone in the entire process was, from the emergency ward doctor to the registrar on duty to the emergency ward nurses to the nurses who then cared for her in the HDU ward where she was taken at about 1am.
This pattern of care and competency that I witnessed would continue for the next two weeks, and the entire experience cost us not one cent. You might have heard people bitch about their experiences in Australia’s public hospital system. You won’t hear me say a bad word. In fact, I couldn’t speak highly enough about the RMH staff and everyone in the chain. The whole process just worked, and I was eternally grateful.
But I’m getting ahead of myself; back to the story.
Saturday, 2.30am: Home
I eventually left Kim, lying in her semi-conscious state in HDU and drove home. The house was filthy. We’d been interstate a week before and hadn’t had a chance to properly unpack. Dirty clothes were heaped in piles on the floor; Scout’s toys were strewn throughout the entire back room; the dishes were piled high. I wouldn’t have it. I began to clean.
I was on a mission. I felt like I needed a clean slate in order to deal with this situation, and having an untidy house felt like a weight that I didn’t need. I’d done two loads of laundry, two loads of dishes, put away countless piles of clothes and toys and other random clutter. The house was ready to help me deal.
It was 4am when I finally crawled into bed, alone. I prayed that Scout was sleeping soundly across the road.
Saturday, 7am: Home
I woke up feeling like I hadn’t really dropped off at all. The house felt empty waking up without Scout or Kim in it.
I wolfed down a piece of toast and ducked across the road to check on Scout; she was watching TV and happily playing with her friends. I explained to her that Mummy was in hospital, and that I’d be going to visit her while she stayed with Jay and Narelle. She asked why mummy was in hospital, and could she come with me. I gave her a reassuring smile and explained that Daddy needed to go now to visit her, and that she would hang out with her friends for a bit more. Thankfully, this satisfied her curiosity. Then I drove in to the hospital.
Saturday, 12pm: Theatre
Kim has confessed that she has very little memory of the morning before her operation. I can tell you that she was remarkably nonchalant about the situation. She’d been told the odds of aneurysm survivors and understood the percentage of people who have a stroke or suffer from cognitive or motor skill disabilities as a result of having one (I’ll give you a hint, it’s pretty fucking high). As a result of this, she was calmly resigned to her fate. As we were waiting outside the operating theatre, I made sure she knew that I loved her, and she smiled. As the anaesthetic started to make her drowsy, she told me that she would “see you on the flip side … or not … whatever.” She shrugged. She knew there was nothing she could do, so worrying about “what if” made no sense.
Saturday, 1pm: At home, pacing
The five hours between Kim being wheeled into theatre and me getting a phone call from the surgeon were the longest five hours of my life.
I drove home and did some more housework. I paced. I tidied. I paced some more. I sent text messages and emails and made phone calls to friends, family and work colleagues, updating them on Kim’s situation. I updated Kim’s blog and her Facebook account as an efficient way of informing people who cared about her. I deliberated over whether to do this or not, as I didn’t want to turn the event into a spectacle, but it seemed like the right move.
I’d been told that Kim’s procedure would take 4 hours. At about the 4 hour and 15 minute mark I was fretting. I punched the number of the hospital into my phone, then cancelled before hitting “Dial.” I told myself it was going to be cool, and that I’d just be interrupting them by hassling them for details. Be patient. Sit tight.
I did some more thinking about that whole single dad prospect. I paced some more. All the while, vicious bushfires raged relentlessly, destroying homes and claiming lives right across Victoria. I was completely oblivious to this tragedy, as I had my own to deal with.
The neurosurgeon who operated on Kim called me at about 5pm—five full hours after she went into theatre. His voice was calm and matter of fact. He chose his words carefully. I was waiting for him to say “the operation was a success.” That’s not what he said. His words were, “Kim’s operation went as planned.” He qualified this by stating that it was a rather difficult procedure, given the location of the aneurysm. I understood that this meant things had gone well, but that we weren’t out of the woods yet. There were still massive risks of complications in the days following, not least the concern that she might suffer a vasospasm. The recovery process long-term would be a long and difficult one. But after I’d digested everything, I realised that this was the best that I could have hoped for—she had dodged a bullet.
I raced back to the hospital.
Saturday, 6pm: Neuroscience HDU
Kim was propped up in her bed, and was alert although looked confused. A bandage ran from the middle of her forehead to just below her right earlobe, and she was hooked up to a number of drips and tubes and machines to monitor her status. Apparently she had just woken up a few moments before I entered the ward. She smiled and asked me if I knew when her operation was going to be.
The nurse and I explained to her that she had already had it, and that it went as planned. Kim was in disbelief. She asked me what time it was. I mentioned that it was about 6:00pm. “In the morning?” No, in the evening sweetheart. She was baffled, and spent several minutes trying to account for the 12 hours or so that she had lost.
Kim was thirsty and asked for some water. The nurse explained to both of us that she was not allowed to drink water, but could use mouthwash instead. She passed me the bottle. I gave it to Kim, and she took a swig.
The nurse gasped, and grabbed the bottle back, explaining that it wasn’t for drinking, but that Kim should use a cotton bud to dab the inside of her mouth with the mouthwash, to prevent it from drying out. I apologised. Kim asked for water again. I handed her the cotton bud. She frowned and, annoyed, dabbed the inside of her mouth.
Then Kim asked about Scout. I explained that she was with the neighbours, happy and apparently behaving herself. Kim then asked for water. I explained that, unfortunately, she wasn’t allowed to have any yet. Then she asked the time again. I told her. She asked about Scout. I told her that she was fine and in good care.
The nurse explained that short-term memory loss was pretty normal after this operation, and that they would be keeping an eye on Kim to monitor whether it would persist.
Kim asked for water again. I smiled and handed her the mouthwash. She frowned, annoyed.
Later in the day, the anaesthetic began to wear off. Unfortunately, the hospital staff were not able to give Kim any particularly strong painkillers (like morphine) because it would interfere with their ability to monitor her cognitive abilities. Poor Kim was asked the same questions every 30 minutes—her name, the day and date, and where she thought she was. Even if she had somehow been able to ignore the enormous amount of pain that was creeping into her head, she couldn’t have drifted off to sleep because of these regular observations. I decided to let her try and pretend to snatch a few precious minutes of pain-riddled sleep.
That headache would be with her for at least 3 months.
Saturday, 8pm: Dinner with the Neighbours. Again.
The neighbours stepped up to the plate again. They fed Scout and I dinner for the second night in a row, and Scout had another sleepover so that I could head back to the hospital in the evening. I want to say that Scout was oblivious to the situation, but I know that’s not true. She’s a very perceptive girl and knew that something wasn’t quite right. I promised her that she could visit Mum in hospital the next day.
(I wasn’t to know that in the next 12 hours Kim’s eye would turn black and swell to the size of a tennis ball—enough to confuse Scout, who asked “Who did that to Mummy?” If I’d known, I might have delayed taking her in.)
I visited Kim again after dinner. She was slightly more alert and I was relieved to notice that the short-term memory loss was less noticeable. The nurses were good enough to turn a blind eye to the fact that I was present well after official visiting hours, and we were able to have a quiet conversation while other patients in the ward slept or had their various psychotic episodes. I read her a bunch of messages that had come through via email and Facebook.
The process of healing had begun, but the house still felt very empty that night. It would be a while before our family routine would get back to anything resembling “normal.”
Fast Forward One Year …
Luckily, as you know, this story does have a happy ending. Kim was in hospital for about two weeks, and at home for a few months before easing back into work, but by now has made what I would consider to be a full recovery. She’s back at work, has no obvious physical or cognitive indications that she had brain surgery, except for the tiny scar below her right ear (actually, it’s a massive scar, but the rest of it is below the hairline). She’s as sharp, witty and intelligent as the woman I married 5 years ago.
I didn’t intend for this post to be such a large missive, and I know it’s verbose—well done if you got through it all. I guess I had plenty to say, as this was an experience that is still very vivid for me, even 12 months after it all happened.
Happy anniversary, Annie.
Tags: aneurysm, brain, kiss-my-ass-2009, surgeryLeaving the Web Standards Group
I sent this email earlier today to the Web Standards Group core mailing list:
I let Russ know earlier this week that it was time for me to hang up my WSG hat.Tags: melbourne, wsgWhile I’ve never really been one for engaging on the mailing list, so haven’t come to know the core members in other cities as well as others, I have been running the Melbourne WSG events for about 4 years now.
My reasons for moving on are largely personal (family commitments, plus a personal project that I’m working on), but there is more to it. While there will always be a place for webby social events and education, I don’t think that web standards as a movement is the important force for moving the web forward that it once was. When you no longer believe that the cause you’re investing time in is having a big impact, the role of organising these meetings just becomes an events management chore … and nobody wants chores in their life.
I don’t know what the future holds for WSG events in Melbourne—encouraging volunteerism in Melbourne has long been an uphill battle. I don’t really understand why that is, but the benefits of running WSG Melbourne have been very tangible for me, from both a personal and professional perspective. Adam, Will and Ricardo, who have helped out in various capacities in the past, may have a vision for the future, but they too have (ever expanding) family commitments so I guess we’ll see.
Melbourne has long been a horse that you can lead to water, but can’t force to drink. Cameron Adams made a similar observation several years ago before moving to Sydney.
At any rate, I’d like to praise everyone on this core mailing list for the efforts they put in, however large or small, whether with the list or forum or with the events. In particular, Russ Weakley, I don’t know how you keep on keeping on, but you have my utmost respect for it—thanks for everything.
Sponsor Me In "Around The Bay In A Day"
This Sunday I’m riding in the Around The Bay In A Day charity bike ride.
While I’m mostly doing it for fun (there are a bunch of us from work riding as a team) the actual goal of the organisation coordinating the ride is to raise money for The Smith Family, who have been helping disadvantaged Australian children and their families for over 80 years.
If you sponsor me in this ride, your donation will help young Aussies get access to education, health services and other support that you and I probably took for granted growing up.
You can donate easily online. The Smith Family is aiming to raise $1 million, so any amount is appreciated.
Tags: bike, charity, melbourne
Matthew Magain works as the manager for online media at 
