My genes crafted a brain aneurysm; expertise of researchers and doctors saved me†

The emergency room doctor had a wonderful way about her; standing close, speaking carefully and watching me closely, as if every word and emotion was of the utmost importance. I was enchanted. Then, after a long night of endless tests, the tests ended when she peered closely, watched me carefully and put her hand on my shoulder and gently said, "You have a brain aneurysm in your middle cerebral artery."

As we drove home, I was flooded by memories. Watching my  gentle aunt, whisking batter for cakes as we talked; I have her recipe but can never make cakes that taste as good hers. I have a photo of her in my hallway, that I see every morning, and looking at it, I'm filled with calm and a sense of being cared for. And I was, until it all ended with the words,"Your aunt died last night of a burst brain aneurysm." I pictured my cousin, sitting on our couch in his white tennis outfit, broad, strong and impossibly handsome, laughing robustly and then, after playing tennis the next day, dying of a burst brain aneurysm. 

Families give us memories and their genes that craft diseases, more terrifying because they reached into our family, our childhood, and killed. 

The neurosurgeon explained the surgery involved inserting a device called a WEB into the femoral artery in my leg, sending it into my brain to seal off the section of my artery that was ballooning out and threatening to rupture. 

This surgery wasn't available to my relatives; so they died. In the years since then, the expertise of researchers developed this technique and, with the expertise of neurosurgeons, an artery deep in my brain can be repaired, leaving only a tiny puncture mark in my leg. In an age where expertise is belittled and outright attacked, thank goodness for those who keep going, through the long training, ignoring the naysayers, to do what only they can—be the experts we need. I unapologetically celebrate them but, before I arrived on the surgical table, I had a reckoning with an artery I had blithely ignored. 

The surgery has a 5% risk of a stroke in my middle cerebral artery—the artery that feeds both language areas without which I cannot understand and produce language, written or spoken. 

Undergoing numerous tests gave me time to come to the conclusion that if there is magic in this world, surely it lives in language. And waiting gave me time to come to grips with my love affair with words.

When I was tiny, understanding spoken words revealed how people felt, what they were thinking and the stories of their lives. To this day, I still feel that wonder and magic of the spoken word. Then came the glorious world of books, first read to me then, slowly, read by me. I remember many of my childhood books and also the day when I finally pulled a book from my father's large library and marvelled at the worlds that opened up. Stories that made the room around me disappear as I entered a world so real that it never left me, wove itself into my life. My parents were scientists and soon I dove into their nonfiction sections, the books explained so much, answered my questions and sent me to the family encyclopedias. Yes, these were the days when a bookcase of encyclopedias was our Google.

Then there came the physical joy of holding a pencil and words emerging, pulling thoughts from my mind onto a page. The pencil is long gone, replaced by a keyboard but the magic has never left me. 

Spoken words have allowed me to craft friendships and a family of my own, these intricate relationships are born of shared understanding, stories and laughter.

My children are now young adults and both of them came home to stay with us during the surgery and after. Some mothers have multiple talents but I'm not one of those. The one enduring thing I gave my children was the magic of words; reading endless books to them and, later, talking about the books they read, tossing around ideas we've heard, feelings we had, even when they were overwhelming but needed to be spoken. We have chatted endlessly, laughed, cried and even fought because things left grumbling under the surface rob any chance of real intimacy. We are open books to one another, born from our bold use of words.

Last week's surgery was a success but the long term failure is, unfortunately, about 10%.

Hopefully, I'll have my words for a lifetime, but today I'll use them to say this one simple thing: we all have love affairs with the wonderful things our bodies allow us to do effortlessly and those love affairs sit on the shoulders of giants who allow us to escape from any horrors our genes have crafted for us. These giants are often not celebrated widely, maybe only a small circle of colleagues and those reading obscure journal articles know them but, after long years of study and longer years spent on using and honing their expertise, they develop new technologies and surgical prowess that any one of us may need one day.

In an age when scientific research is increasingly underfunded, because many claim it to be a waste of tax dollars, when doctors' expertise is maligned and because many claim they are replaceable, as a society we need to confront this idiocy. It was the expertise of my family doctor who insisted I go to the emergency room, the ER doc who diagnosed me, and the surgeon who repaired the aneurysm who saved me.

Think of something you hold dear, and ask what people without any expertise can do for you? After last week's surgery, my answer is not a damn thing; only expertise saved me.

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^† I wrote this the week after my surgery and published it in the Medical Post. It's not just a medical article, it's also an article about words, so I'm submitting it here in case any writers have overlooked an artery that makes your world possible.