My grandmother has been a very important person throughout my life. My entire childhood was spent with her, but once I started getting older, it has been hard to keep up with each other. During this time of our distant relationship, she experience a ruptured brain aneurysm, and I have never gotten the opportunity to sit down with her and learn more about this. She cannot recall anything that happened after when she was experiencing symptoms up until four to five months post insult, so I also referred to my mom and her husband for this time period. My grandmother and I began talking about the morning leading up to the event. She and her husband woke up at their normal time and went through their normal morning routines: fed the dogs, made coffee, …show more content…
The surgeon also placed a shunt in to drain the extra fluid off of her brain and into her stomach. Her husband said there were several issues with fluid on her brain and trying to get it under control. While she was in the ICU recovering, her understanding of what people were saying was not right. If she were asked something, she could respond, but it did not relate to the question. She also talked a lot about her younger life and call friends and family by names of people she knew years ago. The entire duration of her stay in the ICU was six weeks. She was then admitted into an acute rehab setting where she spent four weeks. While in here, she worked on learning how to sit up in bed, put clothes on, feed herself, and other basic functions and mobility skills. One major issue she struggled with was putting her pants on and eating. Each time she would put her pants on, she would put both legs in the same pant leg, but she thought it was correct. While trying to eat, she would hold the fork incorrectly and could not figure out how to pick up food with it and place it in her mouth. From here she was transferred to a sub-acute rehab hospital for three
due to the loss of a large amount of blood after having had her throat
...ical necessities and furthermore cannot trust any doctor anymore because people in Hopkins took her tissues and cells and exploited them.
provide the care that her patient so desperately needed and deserved at that moment and
After her country wide tour she was both mentally and physically exhausted and under doctor's
By the time she was only 38 years old, she was homebound and bedridden for the remainder of her life. Determined and dedicated as ever to improve health care and reduce patients suffering, she continued her work from her bed (Florence Bio).
Something as simple as taking a walk around the facility can prove to be a battle with patient X. From the day I met patient X it was noticeable that she was lacking her memory. Patient X could no longer tell me her name and everyday it would be different struggle, but for that day it was getting her out of bed to take a walk. From the moment I walked in and introduced myself, patient X could not provide me with her name. Patient X constantly asked if I was her baby, and when dealing with an Alzheimer patient, it’s always best to go along with what that patient is saying. As I got patient X up and out of bed, she started to become violent and resistant. Patient X took forty-five minutes to simply get out of bed and dressed, and that was the very beginning of the battle that would consist all day.
Living our busy lives no one else in the family could travel to Houston. Grandma was a strong woman. She could overcome anything and cancer was not going to defeat her. When she arrived at the hospital the doctors took a cat scan and figured out that she had stage four melanoma skin cancer. While my mother and grandma were at M.D. Anderson I was at home living a normal life just starting my first high school basketball season. Every night I worried about how she was doing not thinking about my school work or my athletics. A couple weeks later I called grandma and asked her how she was doing and she assured me that everything was going to be okay and that I should not worry about her. That’s how she lived. She never put herself first in any situation and family and friends were her main focus. Grandma would do anything to make her grandkids happy. I told my grandma I loved her and hung up the phone. The next day at school I looked up the percentage of people killed by melanoma skin cancer and the results were not good. One person dies of melanoma every 54 minutes. When I got home that evening I told my dad that I needed to be in Houston with my grandma. He said he didn’t think that he could make it happen with his busy schedule. I called my mom upset realizing that
I have recently started working as an interpreter at Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio. Through this job, I have become my patients' voice. The experience has made me live their pain, feel their sadness, and revel in their willingness to heal; reinforcing, in my eyes, that we are not treating disease but the patient as a
A time when I experiences failure is when I made the B team for volleyball. From not making the A team I learn a lot of lessons. I knew that if I wanted to be on the A team then I was going to the have to push myself to improve. I knew that just because I didn’t make the team that I wanted to I shouldn’t give up and quit. I also knew that because I didn’t make the team that I want I couldn’t take it out on other people. I had to show good character and prove that I wasn’t taking it out on anyone else. I also knew that I could set long term and short term goals to reach to become better.
and put her down to watch some TV. Then the phone rang and Susan and I looked
just got home from school. I grabbed a snack before I started playing NCAA 08. I picked the Florida Gators and I was versing the Vanderbilt Commodore. I was halfway in the game when my sister came down stairs and yelled,
She was told of the diagnosis. We did not hide the fact that she was given a diagnosis that she would be going home a vegetable, if she ever made it out. She made her decision that day, she wanted to go home. And so she did. She was no longer able to move anything other than her head by that point. She was bedridden and needed...
Disappointment, disbelief and fear filled my mind as I lye on my side, sandwiched between the cold, soft dirt and the hot, slick metal of the car. The weight of the car pressed down on the lower half of my body with monster force. It did not hurt, my body was numb. All I could feel was the car hood's mass stamping my body father and farther into the ground. My lungs felt pinched shut and air would neither enter nor escape them. My mind was buzzing. What had just happened? In the distance, on that cursed road, I saw cars driving by completely unaware of what happened, how I felt. I tried to yell but my voice was unheard. All I could do was wait. Wait for someone to help me or wait to die.
The brain in vascularized by two major blood vessel systems; the carotid arteries, which extend up either side of the front of the neck, and the vertebral arteries, which extend up the length of the spinal cord to form one basilar artery at the base of the skull. These two arteries connect around the brainstem to form the Circle of Willis, from which several other artery systems branch (Brain Aneurysm Foundation n.d.). In order to allow the blood to flow properly, the artery walls are composed of both a muscular and an elastic layer. Sometimes, a weak spot in the walls of these arteries occur due to disease, birth defects, or injury, particularly in areas where the arteries branch out. The thin spot of the artery wall gradually becomes weaker from the constant pressure of pumping blood, forming a cerebral aneurysm (Brain Aneurysm 2016). The most common form of aneurysm, a saccular, or “berry” aneurysm, is characterized by the ballooning out of the artery wall in a Y-shaped segment of branching.
Being the first in my family to attend a four-year university and strive for medical school, many higher educational responsibilities have come a surprise and a learning matter, including expenses. I was raised in a single parent home by my mother who, despite having my brother and I at very young age, attended our local technical school in order to become a registered nurse to provide for us. Her determination and hard work taught me that there are no excuses when striving for success, and that knowledge is power and a key to succeeding. Additionally, my older brother being diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy as an infant and being confined to a wheelchair his entire life also influenced me. Having to give him constant care and aid him with his