AVM-AZING

There has been a pretty big gap in posting on here while Tim has been recovering and I have been taking care of him and things around the house. I'm sorry. Making sure that he was taking painkillers, that he was getting enough to eat and enough sleep, remembering to take short walks, and all of the other worries that go along with caring for someone after surgery have somewhat consumed my thoughts recently. The last time I posted, he had been moved into a recovery room. The next day, Friday the 15th, Tim was discharged. Can you believe it?!? That was WAY earlier than we were expecting.  Tim's first time walking with the physical therapist after surgery. I thought there must have been a mistake when the recovery unit nurse told us that she was prepping his discharge papers and waiting for his neurosurgeon to stop by and approve everything, but later that day we were packing stuff up and heading home.  Tim said the car ride home was awful.  If you have a ...

Tim here! As I have been recovering I've been thinking a lot about what I did prior to surgery to help out with my recovery. I decided to jot down a list of things I did in hopes that it will help someone else out prior to their own surgery. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it sure helped me get prepared! 1. Clean Your House  The instructions I received from my doctor specifically stated I would not be able to do things like mowing the lawn, do laundry, or bend over to unload dishes from the dishwasher. In other words, you really are not going to be able to do any sort of cleaning during your recovery. Personally, having a dirty house stresses me out so not having that stress during my recovery was nice! Note from Tia: Also, a clean house means less risk of sickness or infection! For us this meant sweeping, vacuuming, dusting, cleaning bathrooms, washing all bedding, and wiping pretty much every surface down with disinfectant. 2. Stock Up on Healthy ...

Wow. Today is Saturday. How did that happen?!? I'm so sorry I haven't had much of a chance to update the blog over the last 48 hours, it has been pretty eventful. But in a good way! I'll give you a short break down of what things have been like and then I'm sure Tim and/or I will add more later. First things first, THE SURGERY WAS A HUGE SUCCESS !!! Wednesday (after surgery) 6 PM - One of the surgeons came to the waiting room to let us know that surgery was done, everything had gone great, and they believed that they had removed all of the AVM. They were taking care of all of the post-surgery work and planning to bring him out of anesthesia. 7 PM - Tim was awake! I couldn't see him yet, but they assured me that he was doing very well and there hadn't been any complications. They were going to take him for a CT scan and would let me know when he was back in the ICU. 8 PM (I think? Maybe it was closer to 7:30, but it's all kind of a blur.)...

We have now reached 2019! Turns out it takes a long time to get a cerebral angiogram scheduled at a hospital like OHSU. January 25th It's angiogram day. Yes, an angiogram is a fairly low-risk thing as far as invasive procedures go, but it still required a full day at the hospital, careful monitoring, and a bit of recovery. The angiogram took a little less than an hour and then I was called back up to the recovery wing to see him. He was tired and thirsty, but everything had gone just fine. He told me they had even "Let him see his swirl!" which is what we were now calling the AVM. Tim Waiting for the Angiogram We spent a few hours resting and waiting. Tim for obvious reasons and me because I was now running on about 2 hours of sleep. For most angiograms, they go in through the femoral artery, so there's some concern about it causing a hematoma, which is a collection of blood outside of blood vessels. Basically, bleeding into the leg. They wanted to make ...

The week-long wait between the eventful angiogram day and the followup was not fun, but it finally arrived. February 1st We went back to the neurosurgery unit at OHSU and met with the surgeon's attending (I think?) who reviewed the angiogram with us. He confirmed what everyone had been saying. It was an AVM. A tangle of blood vessels. In his brain. Okay. He talked through each of the different treatment approaches, their likelihood of success, the risks, and the recovery that went with each of them. Option 1: Embolization. For this option, they basically repeat what they did for the angiogram (insert a catheter into the femoral artery, which is fed up to the brain) but instead of injecting dye, they inject a glue-like substance. This reduces blood flow to the AVM and can sometimes help to decrease the size. Definitely not a complete solution.  Option 2: SRS. This option uses stereotactic radiosurgery, which basically means they take a focused beam of radiatio...

Hey everyone, Tia here. I wanted to get this blog created so that Tim and I can start writing some background posts before the 13th. What's happening that day? I'll get to that! November(ish) of 2018 Everything started last year when Tim was constantly suffering from mild headaches. They didn't prevent him from going about his days, he would just describe it as a mild annoyance. A "one or two" on the pain scale. December  We finally decided it was time for him to visit Zoom care and see if they could give him some ideas about what might be going on. He left with a referral for a radiologist and scheduled his first appointment for an MRI. Two MRIs later (two because the radiologist didn't get pictures of the correct area and had to have him come back, ugh) we had pictures of his brain with a scary-looking spot near the front. Top View of Tim's Brain The following day, the doctor sent him this: Dear Tim, I have read the findings of y...