Making The Right Call

The "MakeTheRightCall" campaign is helping to educate individuals to choose whether to visit the emergency department or a primary care physician when faced with a medical problem.  Here is a story from one local woman who made the right call by deciding to go to the Emergency Department when faced with a medical issue.

My ER Experience

 My name is Jan Mikina. I turned 60 at the end of last year, and am fit, slim, active, and healthy, being fortunate to have had no major health concerns over the years.

In late April, I had just finished doing a light workout about 1 a.m., and suddenly, I felt as though a huge vice grip had attacked my head. From my forehead to the base of my skull, I felt extreme, mounting pressure. My vision was affected as well – everything seemed brighter, almost as if all objects had an aura surrounding them. I knew something was terribly wrong.

I was alone in the basement family room, but I knew my husband was upstairs sleeping. Somehow I was able to walk up the stairs, through the kitchen, and down the hall to the bedroom. I seemed to be walking through a light tunnel, and the vice grip on my head just kept tightening and tightening. I woke my husband up and told him something was very wrong, that I needed help. Within minutes, our adult son was helping as well. I became nauseous, started seeing double, and the vice grip of pain never let up. I remember saying I needed to go to ER, and that we’d better bring a bucket…I knew I was going to be sick. There was no doubt in any of our minds that I needed help, and fast.

I recall very little of the 15-20 minute drive to the ER. My husband kept me talking and alert, and before I knew it, I was walking into ER, bent over and holding my head. Intake nurses asked my symptoms, and I was still conscious enough to be able to explain what I was feeling. They seemed to know immediately that I was experiencing a ruptured aneurysm in my brain. I became nauseous again and experienced more double vision and bright auras. I met several doctors, signed papers, and was told that I would need to have emergency surgery, that blood was leaking from the burst aneurysm into the area surrounding my brain. The doctors told me that the fact that I was still talking and understanding things, and that I could sign the consent forms, all boded extremely well for my recovery.

And then I remember nothing until awaking in the recovery room I don’t-know-how-many hours later. My neurosurgeon was by my side. He seemed to be glowing, almost celestial. My vision was still very strange, and there was still pressure at the back of my skull, but the excruciating pain was gone. He told me that I was very fortunate to still be here, to not be paralyzed, and that by everything he could see, I was going to be just fine…that my husband and I had acted quickly, and done the right thing in heading to ER immediately. He explained that the aneurysm was caused by a congenital weakness in the artery. Ten days later, including a week in the Neuro-ICU, I was home recovering, with all my senses and faculties just as they had always been. I did not need any rehab or therapy at all, and had lost none of my abilities. All I needed now was a lot of sleep! I consider myself beyond fortunate. My neurosurgeon and his staff saved my life.

In addition, the scan that was done when I arrived at the ER showed not only the one ruptured aneurysm, but another intact aneurysm on the opposite side of my head. I am scheduled to undergo a second operation at the end of August, to clamp the intact aneurysm so that it will not rupture in the future. While I hate to have to undergo major surgery a second time, I am so fortunate that this problem was discovered by the ER staff.  Soon I will be able to put this experience behind me.

A bit of important back-story – I had experienced a similar “attack” one evening three weeks before the rupture, but much less severe. With my decades-long history of battling sinus headaches, I assumed it was the mother-of-all-sinus-headaches. This time, too, the vice grip pressure had come on suddenly, both in the front and back of my head, and I experienced some brightness in my vision, but – though painful – this discomfort felt very much like nothing more than a horrible sinus attack. I did not consider going to the ER, and just treated myself at home with OTC pain meds, hot compresses, and sinus washes, and felt better within hours, though the “sinusy” feeling continued to bother me for days afterwards, along with other odd symptoms (stiffness at base of skull, rushing sounds in my ears). All these were consistent with severe sinus congestion, so I just ‘self-diagnosed’ and hung in there. However, I was told in ER, when my husband mentioned that I’d had a similar but much milder headache a few weeks earlier that this was a forewarning – it was the aneurysm leaking a bit in advance of the eventual rupture. In hindsight, I could have saved myself from a full-blown rupture and the possibility of death or paralysis, by seeking medical help after the first “attack”.