Living in New York, Julie Brothers is not foreign to a fight, whether because of his dream work, a place in a packaged subway or the last slice of pizza after a long day.
But last year, he found himself in a struggle for his life.
At the age of just 37, the brothers suffered a broken brain aneurysm that was unrepresented for more than 36 hours after doctors initially did not diagnose their symptoms.
The dangerous delay put it at a serious secondary risk that could have caused irreversible brain damage, stroke or even death.
“You know your body better than anyone else,” the brothers said in the post. “You may not be able to identify exactly what happens but if you think something is wrong, you probably be right.”
Lost signs, important risk
Apart from their stress work on television production, the brothers lived a relatively healthy lifestyle without significant medical problems.
“Before the aneurysm, I think a torn ankle was probably the worst of my health problems,” he said. But everything changed the night of April 23, 2024.
The brothers were wrapping their work from home, struck on their laptop and damaged, when he was hit by a pain that was at the back of the Cape of the NO -res.
“I was never shot on my head, but if I compared it with anything, it was so sudden,” he said. “It was like something that fell inside me.”
He had never experienced a migraine, but he had heard his friends’ horror stories and wondered if this was his first.
“I started thinking, Wow, I guess people do not joke, because this is quite horrible,” he said.
Nausea, dizziness, blurred vision and a neck so hard that it could hardly move. He managed to remove a glass of water from the kitchen before collapsing -but the next morning, his symptoms had only worsened.
“I was vomiting and I dehydrated myself because I couldn’t even maintain a sip of water at the time,” he said.
“I wondered,” Am I blowing out of proportion? I’m crazy? “”
Julie Brothers
His neck was still rigid. Although the thought of meningitis briefly crossed his mind, he erased, assuming he had just slept in an uncomfortable position.
Desperate to relieve himself, he reserved a Uber and dragged on to a neighborhood clinic.
“I know they are not specially equipped to deal with medical emergencies … but I didn’t think he had one,” the brothers said.
At the clinic, he described his symptoms on the doctors and mentioned that he suspected that they could be caused by a migraine.
They agreed without any test. Instead, the doctors gave him a shot of anti-inflammatory drugs not steroed by pain, a recipe for some anti-nausea drug and sent it home.
The brothers are not alone.
“The wrong diagnosis takes place 25% of the times due to the failure of exploration,” he told The Post Christine Buckley, executive director of the Brain Aneurysm Foundation.
When the pain becomes deadly
A day and a half after the pain was first produced, the brothers spread to the bed, tormented by a relentless headache and the career thoughts.
“I don’t know if this is a part of being a woman and what we treat with our bodies, but I asked,” I’m blowing this in proportion? I’m crazy? “, He recalled.
At 1:45 AM, he had had enough. Feet, dehydrated and desperate, called another Uber, this time in the ER on Mount Sinai Morningside.
He sat down in the back seat while the driver exploded the club’s music, the smell of his air freshener -he was heavy as he struggled to avoid vomiting all over the car.
When he got up through the hospital’s doors and described his symptoms, the ER staff went into immediate action. They quickly checked their vital, administered liquids and medicines against pain through an IV, and precipitated it for a brain exploration.
The diagnosis was scary: a broken aneurysm, approximately the size of a marble, had been filtering blood in space around his brain. He was sitting at the base of the skull, housed on the wall of his artery subsequent communicating.
A silent murderer
A brain aneurysm is a weakened and abundant area in a brain artery. If it is broken, blood is filtered into the space between the brain and the skull, causing a type of stroke that can jeopardize life known as subaracnoid hemorrhage, according to the BAF.
It is estimated that 6.8 million Americans (about 1 in 50) live with an unregistered brain aneurysm.
Each year, 30,000 of these time bombs explode, or every 18 minutes. Half of these patients die at three months. Among the survivors, the two -thirds are with permanent brain damage, according to the BAF.
“It is very important to evaluate them and treat them quickly,” Dr. Christopher Kellner, a cerebrovascular neurosurgery and director of the intracerebral hemorrhage program of Mount Sinai, told The Post.
When the brothers arrived at the hospital, Kellner had a mission: to stop the hemorrhage, repair the aneurysm and manage the damage that had already been made.
“When the aneurysm bleeds, the blood propagates very quickly and causes inflammation throughout the brain and the arteries around the brain,” said Kellner. “This can cause convulsions, increase fluid accumulation and increase pressure.”
Inflammation can even trigger another stroke days later squeezing the closed arteries and quenching blood flow.
“Although the Walk-in Clinic agreed with me that it was a migraine, I knew something was not going well.”
Julie Brothers
Just three hours after calling -in Uber on Mount Sinai, the brothers were in surgery. Kellner performed an endovascular embolization, a minimally invasive procedure in which he climbed a catheter from an artery to his thigh to the brain.
Through this small tube, he dropped a soft thread coil in the aneurysm, forming a clot that sealed the escape and stopped the hemorrhage.
After that, the recovery began quickly.
Julie Brothers
Two days after the option, the brothers were already sitting and standing. With physical therapy, he stepped on the hallways of the hospital, encouraged by nurses who made it a large number of passes.
“Even walking a little would wear me quite a bit,” said Brothers, who added that he also struggled with light sensitivity, brain fog and problems.
The brothers expected to lose only a few days of work. Instead, he stayed at the hospital for three weeks and spent three months before returning to work.
Four months after discharge on May 13, he completed the BAF’s 5K annual, with Kellner next to him.
“He was floating to see me,” he said.
More than a year after the rupture, the brothers live independently, travel and return to work full time. But the health scare changed its perspective.
“Life is for the living,” he said. “It’s not for constant discomfort.”
Be careful with a “thunderclap head ache”
Most cerebral aneurysms do not cause problems, in fact, up to 80% remain intact throughout the life of a person, according to the BAF.
Buckley said that no past aneurysms usually go unnoticed. But when they grow up, they can pressure on nearby nerves and tissues, which can trigger symptoms such as pain behind an eye, vision changes, facial numbers or weakness, headaches and concentration problems.
However, these aneurysms are often accidental during brain explorations for unrelated problems. Most of these patients only need routine follow -up to see if there is a new growth or changes.
“The risk factors for developing an aneurysm are women, having high blood pressure, having high cholesterol, smoking cigarettes and having other family members who have had aneurysms,” said Kellner.
“In the case of Julie, he is a young woman who is very healthy and her aneurysm probably produced spontaneously,” he added.
Kellner said the initial diagnosis of the brothers is not an isolated event, but there are key indicators that doctors and patients could prevent.
“When you feel that someone has had a sudden and serious headache, this is a sign to travel the route to find out if it is an aneurysm,” he said, emphasizing that the type of pain is often known as “thunder headache.”
If you are sent home without testing like the brothers, don’t be afraid to go back.
“Although the Walk-in Clinic agreed with me that it was a migraine, I knew something was not going well,” he said. “I think this intestinal instinct is there for a reason.”
#Doctors #erroneously #diagnosed #brain #aneurysm #break #years #key #warning #sign #overlooked
Image Source : nypost.com