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From: "Jay Scruggs "
Sent: November 17, 2005
Our son, Clarke, a six-four ex-Marine, a picture of
health and father of two, complained of having an
intense headache and said he felt as if he were coming
down with the flu. For several days he experienced
diarrhea, vomiting, and couldn't keep anything on his
stomach. He complained of getting dizzy in the shower,
and at his wife's request, we took him to the emergency
room at Salem Hospital in Salem, Oregon.
Clarke was very quickly diagnosed as
having an aneurysm. Good grief! How did we miss it?
The signs were all there. To their credit, the
neurological staff at Salem Hospital referred him to Dr.
Burcheil at the Oregon Health Sciences University
Hospital in Portland. The neurological team at OSHU
came up with a split diagnosis. Half believed it was an
aneurysm and half believed it was a cavernoma. They all
agreed, however, that it had been there a long time. It
measured three cm. by four cm. and was located just to
the right of center in line with the top of his ears.
It was in what we came to refer as being a low-voltage
area, but it was putting pressure on all of the
high-voltage areas. To our dismay, Dr. Burcheil had to
be out of town for Labor Day weekend. We had to accept
the fact that neurosurgeons have other commitments, just
like the rest of us. The plan, then, was to
switch Clarke to oral pain killers and send him home
until the surgery could be scheduled. The problem was
that he was allergic to morphine and after two agonizing
days of watching him get worse, the residents relented
and called Dr. B. He ordered that they switch to codeine
for the pain and a common steroid to reduce swelling. Clarke
felt swelling behind his right eye, so we spent another
day at the hospital. A bleed occurred, but it was a
minor one. The new medications worked miraculously and
he eventually came home.
The day before the surgery, they glued a
series of what look like Life Savers to his head and
gave him an mri that was somehow fed into a computer
program. This program mapped the safest and least
obtrusive route into the area and was to be used in the
surgery room. The next day they performed the surgery.
Let me say at this juncture that in my opinion all
of the waiting in this ordeal was the most difficult
part for everyone involved, save perhaps the doctors.
Clarke was apprehensive about having
the surgery and was afraid he might not be the same
person coming out of it that he was going into it. I
prayed for him and in effect said that we were putting
him into the hands of the best surgeon on the west
coast, but more than that, we were committing him to the
hands of the best physician that ever walked the planet,
Jesus Christ. It was around eleven a.m.
The surgery was over in half
the scheduled time and Dr. B said Clarke looked
awesome. We were elated and expected to see him in an
hour or two, but there was a set back. Bleeding
occurred form the outside in and caused two seizures,
and Clarke quit breathing during both of them. They
re-opened and also opened another area behind his right
eye to check for residual blood. All of those things
went well, and we were allowed to see him in the
ICU around midnight. He was so heavily sedated that he
wasn't aware that we were in the room. All of his vital
signs were excellent, so we went home feeling as if we
had turned a corner and were about to enter the recovery
phase. When they started waking him, we communicated
with him by trying to anticipate and answer all of the
questions we knew he would have. We squeezed hands or
he nodded. They removed all tubes early that afternoon
and at around six that evening, he ate one bite of
Jello on his own, a major step.
His recovery was very rapid and four
days later he was released. He is doing so well one
month out that we are all astonished. This isn't to say
that these surgeries are to be taken lightly. They are
major undertakings and require a great deal of physical
stamina, intestinal fortitude, abundant courage, and
all of God's grace. The best advise I can give a
parent, relative, or friend of such a patient is that
you absolutely must take it one day at a time. Don't
allow yourself to think ahead. It will consume you.
Don't allow yourself or anyone near you to start down
that path. Just say, "We won't go there today."
We were blessed by having a great church
family and lots of Christian friends praying for our
son. By the way, he accepted Christ during this
ordeal. We told him that if there were 1000 steps
between him and Christ, Christ would take 999 of them
but not the last one. He had to take that one on his
own. We are grateful that he did. Clarke asked me
to reiterate that having a good attitude and praying
friends determines the outcome of these things. His
mother and I agree but from my experience I can add that
his mother's cell phone came in mighty handy, too. May
God bless you as abundantly as He did us.
Keep the faith.
Jay Scruggs
Salem, Oregon |
