Hoorah! The waiting game for the surgery is finally over with! They managed to shrink 70-75% of my AVM, found a very large aneurysm inside of it (which they also embolized) and I am on my way to a much smaller brain growth! I still have to undergo gamma knife in about a month, but I wasn’t expecting this surgery to be curative by any means. I woke up feeling completely normal minus a headache, some short term memory issues, and a weaker left side of my body. I’m sure those things will lessen within the next couple of days. No craniotomy needed, and i’m finally looking towards a bright light at the end of the tunnel. The next few days is just resting and making sure I keep up with the steroids they gave me to make sure my brain doesn’t swell! Thank you so much for the good vibes and prayers everybody! I heard and appreciate them all!
Embolisation isn’t suitable for everything. I know you’ve had a great experience with it but if Bella has some smaller vessels that are part of her AVM, they may be too small to go anywhere near with a catheter, so gamma knife or similar radiotherapy may be her only/best option.
When the AVM is too small (1, 2mm) embolization does not work
Another problem is doctors don’t like to do more than one embolization.
I struggled to find, what is reasonable, what is “I don’t want you to sue me”, what is pushing the boundaries.
What I found, GK offers the lest problems, but it can also lead to hemorrhage if the AVM is too big. So I am asking if here AVM is hopefully 1mm, 2mm, or something very small, because GK is a very very slow acting surgery.
She has not told us the size of the AVM now, so that is why I’m askin.
It’s fine. I just thought I’d point out it isn’t suitable for everything.
I disagree with you re multiple embolisations. On the contrary, I believe embolisation is often undertaken in one, two, or even three steps. My doc suggested he might take two shots at my DAVF. As it happened, it took just one. One is best but more than one as a plan of action is not uncommon with embolisation, from what I’ve been reading.
No we’re talking about the same thing.
If you try to do just too much glue on one embolization then you have risk of hemorrhage.
That is why they do it in multiple steps.
It is tricky, the doctor has to be extremely good and use WADA test and be familiar with it. I found a lot of doctors are not.