What happened?

This seems to be the question of the hour.

Archie and I went out of town for the weekend to visit our friends the Schmidts for a baby shower and a church festival. We got back home around 12:30 pm. We worked in the yard and then he worked on his computer.

He eventually feel asleep in the bedroom, I heard him snoring really loudly, unlike anything I have ever heard from him. He was snoring so loud that I could not hear the tv in the living room so I had to close the bedroom door and turn up the volume. After a little while I could hear him in the bathroom talking and trying to make himself throw up. When I went in the bathroom to find out what he was doing he kept muttering to himself saying I have to make myself sick and I have a terrible headache. He was pretty non responsive to me so I thought he was sleepwalking and that he either had a migraine or he was dehydrated. So I put him back to bed because I was thinking maybe if it was a migraine that it would go away if he went to sleep (I do this when I have migraines). Archie never has headaches so I thought he probably has a headache or migraine. He went back to sleep and started that horrendous snoring again. After a little while I heard a thud from the master bathroom. I ran in there and saw Archie lowering himself to the floor from his hands and knees next to the bathtub. There was also a scratch on his nose that was bleeding so I think he fell down.

I was shaking Archie and yelling at him but he was unresponsive at that time so I called my mom and she said to called 911. I called the paramedics and they came and took him to Centennial Medical Center in Frisco.

We arrived and waited for tests to be run. All Archie did was keep talking about his headache, needing to throw up and was basically out of it. When the doctors were asking questions he made no sense. His business partner, Matt came and met us and helped make phone calls and directions. After about 2 hours they figured out that he had a brain aneurysm and they wanted to Careflight him to Baylor Dallas. I got to ride along which was our first helicopter ride.

What is a brain aneurysm? Here is my definition: It is where there is a weak spot in the wall of a blood vessel in the brain. The weak spot can cause a balloon type growth where the wall is weak and blood will accumulate there instead of going down the blood vessels like it should. You can go to: http://www.brainaneurysm.com for more information.

Once we got to Baylor Archie's mom & stepdad Jerry (drove in from Wichita Falls), Chris Bishop and Brian Plemons met us up there. They did some scans on his neck and head to make sure he did not hurt his neck during the fall. Eventually around 3:00 am he was put in the ICU room to await a doctors evaluation At this point jennifer, Jerry and I went home to get a couple hours of sleep and pack clothes for the next couple of days. We only slept for a few hours because the nurse said she did not know when the doctor would do rounds, it could be as early as 5 am but who knows.

The next day the doctor showed up and said that Archie would have an angiogram that morning so that they would be able to see the aneurysm and try to correct this issue. The two options where putting coils in the aneurysm or surgery where they cut open the brain and go clip the aneurysm. For information about the coils go to: http://www.brainaneurysm.com/aneurysm-treatment.html.

After talking to the doctor I lost it, I started crying and could not stop. There was a really nice nurse that gave me a little pep talk. She was telling me I was doing really good but i needed to be strong for Archie and make sure to not cry in front of him so that he did not get worried. After that, I pulled myself together I was able to be the wife he needed when he was getting ready for the angiogram.
They were able to put three coils in the aneurysm to try to keep the blood from going in the aneurysm and keep it going down the blood vessels. It is pretty amazing though because they went through a blood vessel in his groin all the way up to the aneurysm in his brain.

Afterwards we had to just wait to see what would happen. We were waiting to see if vasospasms would take place. My definition: Vasospasms are basically spasms on the blood vessels that cause the blood vessels constricted where blood cannot get through. If the spams are severe enough they can cause stroke like symptoms. For more information you can go to: http://www.brain-aneurysm.com/cv.html.