I had just had a big bowl of pho, and was on my way home, and in about an hour my brain would explode.
You have those moments in your life, that you will always vividly remember, and this is one of mine.
I was laying on the couch, watching TV after a half day at the office. It was a Friday. I got up to go to the kitchen, and half way across the living room it felt like someone hit me in the head with a baseball bat. I fell to my knees in pain.
Thinking it was just a bad headache, I tried everything to get rid of it. By the time Tina got home, I was sitting in our garden tub full of cold water, with a cold wet towel over my head, puking. Even still, I thought I'd power through it, and told her that I'd just take a nap and I'd be OK. An hour or so later she convinced me to go to the ER.
The ER was empty. I puked again in the waiting room restroom. They quickly shuffled me back for a CT scan, and gave me some morphine shortly after. Next thing I know, my aunt and uncle were there and I was being loaded on a helicopter for a ride downtown.
I'd had a subarachnoid hemorrhage and the ER doctor told Tina that he didn't expect me to live.
I spent the next seven days in the neurotrauma ICU at Memorial Herman. I was fully conscious, but heavily drugged, and felt like I was one of the only "healthy" people in that unit. Several people came in, that didn't make it out, and some came in that never made a sound. I couldn't see them, but I could hear everything that was going on. The whole time, the doctors told my family that I'd likely be a vegetable, if I went home at all. On the eighth day, I proved them all wrong and they moved me to a private room where I finally got a shower and some decent sleep. On the tenth day, I went home.
The doctors couldn't tell me why it happened or if it would happen again, but he did say that it hadn't stopped bleeding on it's own, I'd have died in about another second or so.
Here's to 10 years, explosion free!
You have those moments in your life, that you will always vividly remember, and this is one of mine.
I was laying on the couch, watching TV after a half day at the office. It was a Friday. I got up to go to the kitchen, and half way across the living room it felt like someone hit me in the head with a baseball bat. I fell to my knees in pain.
Thinking it was just a bad headache, I tried everything to get rid of it. By the time Tina got home, I was sitting in our garden tub full of cold water, with a cold wet towel over my head, puking. Even still, I thought I'd power through it, and told her that I'd just take a nap and I'd be OK. An hour or so later she convinced me to go to the ER.
The ER was empty. I puked again in the waiting room restroom. They quickly shuffled me back for a CT scan, and gave me some morphine shortly after. Next thing I know, my aunt and uncle were there and I was being loaded on a helicopter for a ride downtown.
I'd had a subarachnoid hemorrhage and the ER doctor told Tina that he didn't expect me to live.
I spent the next seven days in the neurotrauma ICU at Memorial Herman. I was fully conscious, but heavily drugged, and felt like I was one of the only "healthy" people in that unit. Several people came in, that didn't make it out, and some came in that never made a sound. I couldn't see them, but I could hear everything that was going on. The whole time, the doctors told my family that I'd likely be a vegetable, if I went home at all. On the eighth day, I proved them all wrong and they moved me to a private room where I finally got a shower and some decent sleep. On the tenth day, I went home.
The doctors couldn't tell me why it happened or if it would happen again, but he did say that it hadn't stopped bleeding on it's own, I'd have died in about another second or so.
Here's to 10 years, explosion free!
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