The Longest Week of My Life: Part One

'Twas the week before Christmas and on Blue Ridge Road, a young lady was shaking from what she'd just been told.

After a barrage of tests with my ophthalmologist in November of 2003, he'd discovered that I had severe blind spots in my left eye. My left eye only. My camera eye. They were pinpricks of blind spots, enough to cause irritation if the left eye was the only one in use, but not enough to alter my vision. The doctor didn't know what caused them, and that bothered him. Like any great thinker, he was irritated that he couldn't give me a sound conclusion and he didn't give up on me. Instead, he scheduled me to go in for an MRI at Rex Hospital. I had no idea what to expect. Had I known, I would have been a lot more scared going into it. (Not that the unknown doesn't cause me slight panic, but I'm more at ease with it.) That seems to be a recurring theme in my story: "I would have been a lot more scared if I had known..."

So if you have never experienced an MRI, let me describe an example. Imagine you are laying in bed. Now imagine the bed is the bottom of a upside-down fiberglass canoe; narrow, hard, and slippery. But you manage to lay on it, imagining you're back in middle school playing "light as a feather, stiff as a board." No problem. But then someone puts a bottomless birdcage over your head. Okay, so that feels a little Hannibal Lecter-y, but fine. Then they shove that canoe into a hollowed out log that's wide enough for the canoe and the birdcage, but that's it. Your arms are pinned, you can't move your head, and if you try to move, they start over from the beginning. Stay completely still. Next, they (Whoever 'they' are in this analogy, I don't know. In reality, it's the machine. Maybe Sasquatch, since this seems to be an outdoor comparison.) start beating on the log with sticks. Sometimes instead of beating on the log, they drag a dagger across the bark. All the while, voices remind you to stay completely immobile... or else. This goes on for all time. Or 30 minutes to an hour.

Terrified? I was. I have since grown accustomed to the test and practice self-hypnosis techniques. The MRI is now shrouded in my happy place and the only reason they have to restart my tests is if I fall asleep in the tube and shift my head. True story.

Okay, back to the story. I finished my MRI and went home. It was early evening, so the order of the day was dinner, play around on my computer, read a little, then bed. At, we'll say, 9 pm, my phone rings and I assume I'll be chatting with my boyfriend instead of reading a book before bed. It was the doctor. And at that point I should have been scared... what doctor calls so late? But I've discovered I take life at an easy stride. Whatever will be will be, right? The doctor told me the cause of my blind spots was an aneurysm resting on my optic nerve and it was disrupting the signal to my brain. I understood about three of those words put together, but knew I needed to reply. My response seems so laughable to me now, "Is it moving?" 

So my friendly, ever-vigilant ophthalmologist started calling to set up an appointment for me to consult with a neurologist. (Didn't I say he deserved flowers?) I got off the phone and told my mom, my dad, my sister, and my boyfriend. I suppose they all understood the implications of the news, but I was still happily ignorant in my joy of life. Que sera sera. I should have registered the look of concern on my mom's face or the tone of slight anxiety in my dad's usually steady voice. That was day one.

Day two was like any other day. I went to work (as a file documentarian for a third-party information company) and let my manager know that I'd be needing some time for doctor's visits. Got a call confirming my appointment with the neurologist the next day. No biggie.

Day three. Here's where things start getting really fuzzy because everything started happening so fast. I call it the longest week of my life, but it was also the fastest (in kind of like "the days are long and the years are short" way.) I went to the neurologist with my mom, located at Duke Medical Center. For the first time, I understood what was happening. The neurologist, Dr. Michael Alexander, explained an aneurysm: It's a ballooning of the blood vessel wall where that part has grown thin. The pressure of blood flow expands that part of the vessel, causing it to extend out from the blood vessel. This can happen anywhere in the body, but because mine was in my brain, it posed a greater risk. The blood doesn't stop flowing and the balloon doesn't stop filling. I know what happens to a latex balloon when there's too much air... so I knew what would happen to me. If it ruptured I would have bleeding in my brain and I knew that could cause brain damage. Shit just got real. Dr. Alexander showed me pictures of my aneurysm and told me it was a saccular aneurysm measuring 7mm. He said given the location and size, he estimated I had six months before it ruptured. There was a procedure called clipping, essentially putting a metal clip around the base of the aneurysm, stopping blood flow into the balloon and drastically reducing the chance of rupture. Sign me up.

But wait... there's more! As if having an aneurysm wasn't enough, I had another circulatory anomaly. We'll pause here for some audience participation. Put the index and middle finger of your right hand on your neck, just to the right of your throat. Feel that? Yup... it's your pulse. Repeat on the left side. Still feel the pulse? Awesome! You're normal! As for me, when I repeat on the left, it doesn't matter how far I dig my fingers in, there's nothing. Maybe a ghost beat from my fingertip, but that's it. Dr. Alexander told me about my anomaly and then took out his stethoscope to double check. Gave a low chuckle and shook his head. "Niki, You don't have a left carotid artery. It just isn't there." Every doctor since then has done the exact same thing when I tell them about it. I agree, it's so incredible that it's impossible to believe without checking. Sometimes I double check, even now. (As an aside, I remember a time at Girl Scout camp when I was about eleven, we were talking about the circulatory system during a CPR class and they suggested checking a pulse at the carotid artery and I couldn't feel mine. Maybe I should have told someone?)

The office made my arrangements for me to have an angiogram the next day and get checked into the hospital right afterward. I took a deep breath and cried. Thank goodness my mom was there with me. I had just turned 24. I wasn't ready for life, or the risk of it ending.

And even now, this story makes my eyes misty, recalling all the what ifs and thanking God for writing the map. So in upcoming posts you can look forward to the rest of the story, the aftermath, and a little more information that I've learned about aneurysms in the 12 years since then. Stay tuned.