Katie Landis

Mom was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm several months ago. Frankly it was a miracle that it was caught. In January she had symptoms that were presenting as a stroke. Fortunately we discovered it was not a stroke. However in the process of CT scans etc the doctors discovered the aneurysm along with some small brain bleeds. If she had not had these symptoms, which were completely unrelated to aneurysm the doctors would have never found it. 


About a month ago they did an exploratory procedure to look at the aneurysm. Part of this was to determine if the exploratory procedure could be used to fix the aneurysm. This procedure could not fix it, but did give the doctors information as to what they were working with. Based on that, the recommended that they conduct a full brain surgery to come in and fix the aneurysm. 


Surgery was scheduled for 3/8/18. This procedure is done every day, and while risky it was typical for the doctor. We knew that she would most likely be in the ICU for 2-3 days and another 3-5 days in the hospital, with 6-8 weeks off work. 


Her pre-op was originally scheduled to begin at 10:00 am on Thursday 3/8/18. Several days before the hospital moved the pre-op time up to 6:30 am. Once they got her in the Operating room the doctor said he was having a conversation with her and everything was fine. However in the time between that conversation and the starting the surgery, most likely removing the portion of the skull, the aneurysm ruptured which is a catastrophic blow. The doctor was able to repair the aneurysm and they immediately did a CT scan. The bleeding was so significant that they took her bad and did a second surgery, removing more of her skull to allow the brain to swell and  remove blood.