Journal entry by Maeve Cornell-Taylor —
Dear friends and family,
Today I have two very excellent pieces of news to share! First, today is Rion's Birthday—HOORAY! And second, I am very excited to report that as she begins another journey around the sun she will be doing so with an enormous weight off her shoulders. Earlier this summer, Rion underwent a surgery to coil the active aneurysm is her brain, and we are so happy to share that it was a success! After taking a few months to process, and make sure things continued smoothly, now seemed like a good time to let you all know the news.
I'll let Rion take over from here! Below is an update from her:
I think I kind of jumped into having this surgery after so much apprehension after having two procedures. First an angiogram, or a scan that showed how the blood flowed, in March which showed that the artery that the aneurysm was on had basically cut itself off from the rest of the brain! Which was great news! Then a month later I had a CT scan that essentially showed the opposite of the angiogram, that my aneurysm had grown and there seemed to be blood flowing through the artery that was supposed to be cut off. The scary part was that if blood was flowing, the higher the chance of strokes occurring with more permanent damage. That made the decision to go in and get the beast, coil the aneurysm, all the more definitive yet nerve-wracking with the sense of the unknown happening. Coiling meant they went in through my groin via a catheter and inserted spring-shaped soft metal coils into the aneurysm, which induce clotting and no more blood can pass through the aneurysm. So there is now no longer a chance of the aneurysm bleeding out again. My surgery was a success!
I can't thank my neurosurgeon and his team enough. They really worked hard to figure out the best way possible to get rid of this aneurysm when at first because of placement and how large the aneurysm was, coiling wasn't the best option. When I was in recovery, a doctor from my neurosurgeon's team came in to check on me and said in a very dark way, "Can you believe it?" and I immediately was like wait whatt?! Believe what? What happened? Am I ok? I was starting to freak out! He was like, "Can you believe it, you're here! That you made it, that your artery was so unexpected, special and scary but that you're alive." I nervously laughed with him but that knowledge that holy cow, I am alive is really quite unreal and amazing.
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