Hey everyone, it is only lately I began remembering what happened to me when I was eight. I would go years without remembering the rupture, but due to my sister having some form of ptsd from it (and probably myself as well), I kind of just want to type it out. It ruptured (or bubbles and ruptured later) randomly, I was on my way to the pool. It felt essentially like vertigo coupled with me losing basic motor functions. My parents were getting ready to go furniture shopping as we had just moved to a new town/house. I recall telling my mother that i didnāt feel good and that something was wrong. So I, thinking that it was just a headache normal people have, walked to my room, albeit using anything I could find as a brace as my symptoms were worsening. I recall the symptoms turning very severe as I entered my room. The headache was intense, I was nauseous, and my eyesight was very sensitive to light. I remember thinking, even as a young kid, that I was potentially dying. For reasons I canāt remember I climbed to the top bunk of my bed, proceeded to throw my guts up, and began a series of several seizures with no one aware they were occurring. I would regain consciousness for maybe 2-3 minutes, wondering why I was so sweaty and why there was vomit everywhere, and start seizing again (I think, my memory is blacked out to this day). Apparently my sister (10 years old at the time) could hear me screaming bloody murder the entire time and saw me seizing. Not knowing what was happening she called my parents telling them I needed to go to the hospital. She told them she was scared. She had looked up the symptoms and was fairly sure that I was having brain issues, to which she relayed to my parents over the phone. My parents told her do not call 911, I was just sick, and if she did they would beat her ass when they got home. Again I had no idea any of this occurred, I just know that I was in tremendous pain. Over the course of three days, with varying episodes of pain (the pain was always there though) I stayed in my bed. My parents did not take me to a hospital. I couldnāt walk, my eyesight was skewed, and my sense of smell really sensitive. When conscious I was in severe pain, the best description I could give is getting hit with a hammer with every heartbeat. Every waking moment was torturous. The only time I wasnāt in pain was the few seconds after I would regain consciousness, I wouldnāt feel any pain and I would think oh thank god im better. But sure enough the pain would come back, and I would start weeping. I cannot stress enough how bad it was. I was constantly throwing up. At one point, thinking I was dehydrated, my parents made me chug like 4 Gatorade bottles, which I promptly threw up. My mom kept shoveling blood thinners down my throat, thinking they would help my headache, when in hindsight they probably made it worse. On the third day we went to the ER. The CT scan showed the bleed and I was rushed to the hospital and put into the ICU. There I would have several severe episodes of bleeding, moments I do not recall. Apparently the pressure was so great that I would seize and at one point (apparently, again I do not remember) I told the doctors to just kill me. The only thing that I remember of these episodes was waking up, naked, and covered in sweat wondering what happened. They were close to performing surgery, but the location of the AVM was inoperable. I know this because some intern came in and gave me, an eight year old kid, my prognosis. Keep in mind At the time I had zero idea what was going on. She basically said āya man, you could dieā. If they did surgery, I would either never walk again, or die. They gave me a drip of morphine, which was actually amazing. Long story short, we contacted a neurosurgeon in Phoenix who refused to do surgery, so I had a gamma knife. Four years later Iām cleared. Iām having trouble forgiving my parents for not taking me to the hospital sooner. I was a child in an amount of pain that no one should go through for three days. These are the same people that tried to send my bipolar sister to an exorcist, but still. I remember the doctors at the hospital questioned my parents on way the hell they didnāt take me sooner, but I guess my dad just flipped out on them.
I have a few questions for others with stories similar to mine:
- Do you have brain damage? If the doctors did say that I did my parents would not tell me, thinking god will heal my brain, or that i being a kid should not know. I have issues with memory and concentration, fatigue, amongst others.
- How do you remember the pain? All I can remember is how grueling every waking moment at home was.