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more about my brains
When I was a little girl, my grandmother had brain surgery. I remember very little about it; she used to have (extreeemely dyed) red (still orange, but yeah) hair and then she had a surgery and had her head shaved for it and when her hair grew back in grey she resumed having it Done, but never again had it Dyed. My understanding was that she had a tangle of nerves up in the back of her head somewhere, and she had the surgery to get it removed or in some other way sorted out. This has been on my mind in the past few days while I've been wondering what the doc is going to say tomorrow w/r/t my MRI, and especially today when I woke up with a raging headache that didn't even begin to ease up until about 5pm.
Let me say right now that I do not, repeat, DO NOT expect that the MRI will show anything at all, certainly not that I need brain surgery. Quite apart from the vanishing odds of such a thing, if the report indicated anything of the kind the doctor would already have called me to say I needed to come in sooner.
But one wants to be as aware of one's family history as possible, right? So I asked my folks, and I learn that it wasn't a tangle of nerves, it was a tangle of blood vessels; and she became aware of it after some episodes she described at the time as blackouts - e.g., she'd be washing dishes, and then the next thing she knew she'd be all splashed with water, but she didn't remember dropping anything or splashing or etc. - NB my father thinks her description of her situation was probably more sensational than it called for, because she was always a little on the dramatic side, but everyone agrees that there must have been something going on there or she wouldn't have had it operated on; and my father had some migraine-like headaches and MRI action and who-knows blood-vessel thing some time ago, but didn't have any surgery because his doctor didn't think it was of much concern.
So who knows, is what I'm saying. [chewing thumbnail]
Let me say right now that I do not, repeat, DO NOT expect that the MRI will show anything at all, certainly not that I need brain surgery. Quite apart from the vanishing odds of such a thing, if the report indicated anything of the kind the doctor would already have called me to say I needed to come in sooner.
But one wants to be as aware of one's family history as possible, right? So I asked my folks, and I learn that it wasn't a tangle of nerves, it was a tangle of blood vessels; and she became aware of it after some episodes she described at the time as blackouts - e.g., she'd be washing dishes, and then the next thing she knew she'd be all splashed with water, but she didn't remember dropping anything or splashing or etc. - NB my father thinks her description of her situation was probably more sensational than it called for, because she was always a little on the dramatic side, but everyone agrees that there must have been something going on there or she wouldn't have had it operated on; and my father had some migraine-like headaches and MRI action and who-knows blood-vessel thing some time ago, but didn't have any surgery because his doctor didn't think it was of much concern.
So who knows, is what I'm saying. [chewing thumbnail]
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-J
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It's what my maternal grandfather died of. It's what my mom had brain surgery for a few years ago. It tends to be genetic. You have it when you're born. It tends to cause trouble in your 30's or 40's (my mom was unusual that it took so long to manifest, she was 79).
Not to freak you out but yes, get this looked at *ASAP*. When my mother started having symptoms, she was in surgery within a week.
ETA: According to Wiki, it's not genetic but my mom's doctor said it tended to run in families so... *shrug*
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Mom: "Blackout episodes", right? I thought that was why she hardly ever drove.
Dad: I thought she hardly ever drove because she enjoyed being catered to.
Of course they could both be right (and given how much she catered to my grandfather, she earned a little passenger-seat time, you know?). I remember her driving plenty, but that would have been post-surgery. So, as before, who knows.
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