Sunday
8:00am
Baystate Neurology reviewed labs and recommended that Bryan be transported to Tufts New England Medical Center in Boston. As a huge answer to prayer, one of the top Cerebral Vascular Surgeons in the world (Dr. Adel
Malek) was available to take Bryan’s case. And within the hour all arrangements were made and a room was ready and waited at the ICU in Tufts. Becky and Bryan’s parent drove home to shower and pack a bag.
10:30am Bryan’s parents drove Becky to Boston. They arrived before the ambulance so they were able to see them bring Bryan in. Bryan said later the ambulance got lost and drove over several curbs before finding the right entrance. An ICU nurse from
Baystate stayed with Bryan until he was actually checked into the hospital.
3:00pm A resident Neurologist visited Bryan’s room and explained in more detail the diagnosis.
Diagnosis: An
AVM (Arterial Venus Malformation) was found in the cortex area of his brain. Simply put, an
AVM is a little tangle of blood vessels. Many people, like Bryan, are born with
AVMs and never know they have them. But Bryan’s was in a place in the brain that was effecting the blood draining from the brain causing blood to backup a little bit and cause pressure on all the veins in his brain. This then caused one of the veins in the Cerebellum to bleed. This bleed was considered a small stroke- thankfully not having a large consequence.
The Neurologist also said they were going to do an
Angiogram in the morning to have even a better picture of what’s going on. She explained the
criticalness of the situation and that Bryan would be monitored extremely carefully over the next few days. While the Neurologist was talking to Bryan, Becky, and Merrie, Bryan had an allergic reaction to the blood pressure medication and they tried to counter act that with morphine to which he had a secondary allergic reaction. They immediately treated the reactions with
Benadryl and the symptoms calmed down. Anyone who knows Bryan well, knows how much he dislikes medicines and he said this just confirmed his beliefs that they are in fact not good for the body
At this point Bryan was back to his cheerful self and had his sense of humor. He was also extremely hungry, but they
wouldn’t feed him (he
hadn’t eaten since 6pm Friday). All they would let him eat was ice chips. Becky was still holding up strong, but really tired. They whole family appreciated all the prayers that were going out on his behalf and really felt they were walking in God’s favor every step.
10:00pm The Neurologist returned to the room and said that Dr
Malek wanted to have a phone consultation with Bryan and his family. At this point Bryan was very tired and asked us to go to the waiting room to do the talking. Merrie and Becky went and received Dr
Malek’s phone call. He explained the seriousness of the situation and the high risk that Bryan was at because of the
AVM. She was going to so the
Angiogram in the morning followed by a procedure to begin to seal off the blood supply to the
AVM causing it to become
nonfunctioning and thus begin to restore the proper blood flow in his brain. This procedure is called an (were trying to remember the technical term) where the doctor goes up through the groin to the brain and glues together the veins feeding the
AVM. After all the questions were asked and some tears shed at the seriousness of the situation the realization that a plan was in affect was comforting.
