This past Monday, September 5th was the 5 year anniversary of when Archie had his brain aneurysm. It is such a miracle that Archie survived and that he is alive today.
We definitely went through a journey during Archie's recovery. Almost a year of our lives was dedicated to his recovery due to all the complications that he encountered. Below are some of the highlights of that year:
- The coiling procedure that didn’t work
- A Craniotomy
- Severe vasospasms that lasted weeks, they even caused him to lose control over
parts of his boy like a stroke - weakness in his face, hands, legs, etc.
- An external shunt
- An internal shunt
- A trip to the hospital in October where infections were found on the shunt so it had to
be removed
- Another external shunt
- A couple more weeks in the hospital while the infection was cleared up
- Another internal shunt
- A trip to the hospital in June with an infection of some sort but no answers so they sent us home
- A trip to the hospital in July because of a staph infection so they pulled the internal shunt again but this time they had to leave a catheter in his head because it had grown attached to scarred tissue and to remove it would cause bleeding
- An external shunt that later was removed because Archie was processing the fluid correctly and no longer needed the shunt.
- A trip to the hospital in August because the catheter had staph on it so Archie had to have another craniotomy to remove the catheter micro surgically
- A PICC line with IV antibiotics that Archie had to carry with him 24/7
I thank God that Archie is alive and well. That event changed our lives forever but
it also made our relationship stronger. We now have a 21 month old little boy and another boy on the way. We appreciated all the prayers that were made on Archie's behalf and I can report that Archie is doing well.
My public announcement that I will say is that if anyone tells you that they have the worst headache they have ever had in their life to go ahead to the hospital to get them checked out. The worst thing you will have to deal with is a hospital bill but it might save someone's life.
