OH CRAP

Life is sometimes a pile of dog shit wrapped in a layer of hippo dung mixed in a pile of vomit and rotten eggs that has been left in the hot sun for three days. If you happen to disagree with me, simply read on.

Bridget found out last Monday that she has what is known as a cavernous malformation (or cavernoma) in her brain stem (more specifically, near her pons). This has disrupted her life significantly over the past 3 weeks, and will likely continue to until she gets surgery to have it removed. Let me tell you the story of its discovery...

A few weeks ago, Bridget went to the doctor because she was experiencing vertigo. She was also experiencing numbness on the left side of her face and the lower ends of her right arm and leg. At her first visit, the doctor mostly ignored her numbness and simply diagnosed her vertigo as BPPV, which is caused by a disturbance in the inner ear. He said this would go away on its own for the most part.

The vertigo - and accompanying nausea - persisted, and so did the numbness. About 2 weeks after her first visit to the doctor, she went back, and a new doctor scheduled her for an MRI brain scan. The turnaround on that was pretty quick, and the MRI picked up the cavernous malformation.

This cavernous malformation is a centimetre-sized lesion of blood vessels/vascular tissue. She may very well have had this malformation all of her life, and the malformation itself isn't such a big problem. The problem is when it starts to hemorrhage the bleeding causes damage to the surrounding nervous tissue. So, what likely happened was that a few weeks ago, it was hemorrhaging and caused the current set of symptoms.

More about cavernous malformations can be found here: http://www.brain-aneurysm.com/cm.html and here: http://www.mayoclinic.org/cavernous-malformations/

The pons is a wonderful peice of neural architecture, which controls a wide variety of critical life functions, such as sleep, respiration, swallowing, bladder control, hearing, equilibrium, taste, eye movement, facial expressions, facial sensation, and posture (this is copied and pasted straight from Wikipedia). It is also a conduit of information between the brain and the rest of the body. Damage to this area is very bad, as depending on the damage, it could kill you.

She met with a neurosurgeon to go over the results of the MRI, and he said that because of where it is positioned, surgery is possible (which is lucky, as malformations in the brainstem can sometimes be too dangerous to operate on). He wants her to meet with another neurosurgeon, the new chief of neurosurgery, to talk in more detail about the risk and benefits of surgery.

Surgery is definitely a stressful prospect, as surgery could damage nervous tissue as well. However, surgery would likely stop the possibility of hemorrhaging in the future, which could lead to serious problems. There also exists the good possibility that surgery could alleviate her current symptoms (i.e., the numbness, vertigo, and nausea, may not be permanent).

But, despite this bad news, there are good points: 1) she is relatively healthy now, and the risk of new damage in the near future is relatively low, 2) the new chief of neurosurgery in San Diego is apparently one of the top guys in the field for surgery on this particular type of problem, so she may be in the best hands possible, and 3) this may be something that can be cleared up effectively and bring her back to good health.

Needless to say, this really SUCKS. It sucks, it sucks, it sucks, it sucks, it sucks. But, it could also be worse. I am happy that right now she is doing relatively OK and may be all better one day soon.

How many times have I posted that living in two different cities is hard? Apparently not enough, as life has given us this to remind us that it is indeed horrible. Bridget was up for the 3 day weekend we had here, and just left tonight. She also took the day off on Friday, to fly standby and come up sooner. Spending 4 days together was just what we needed. It is even possible that she is feeling a little better because she had me to take care of her for a bit. But then she had to leave tonight, and I might not see her again for 3 weeks. I hope that she will be OK up there without me, but she has good friends who I know will take care of her if she needs it. But we'll see - I might go up there sooner if she needs me, or if I just damn well feel like it :)

Well, that is all I will post for now. Sorry for the sad post, but it also feels good to get the news out there. I will, of course, keep everyone updated on Bridget's condition with this blog. To those who have already expressed thier sympathy and support, we appreciate it immensely! I am confident we will get through this and Bridget will be healthy once more.