from the beginning

Here's Dawn's account of the first few days of this entire ordeal.

On New Year's Day, Dad got a pretty bad headache which persisted throughout the day. He usually doesn't get headaches, so he called me (Dawn) and asked my opinion about him possibly going to urgent care. I encouraged him to go and get it checked out - even if it wasn't anything they could tell him what to watch for, etc. At urgent care, the doctor said it would most likely be a less than 10 percent chance that the headache was anything significant, but she could authorize a CT scan. Mom hustled Dad into the car and they went off to get the CT scan at Lutheran. The initial CT scan showed either an aneurysm or a tumor. He then went to the ER and got checked in so they could do further tests. An MRA (an MRI of the arteries) indicated it was a large aneurysm. He was admitted and planned to have an angiogram on Friday, then possible surgery after that. On Friday it turns out no one could do the angiogram at Lutheran, so he was transferred to Presbyterian/St. Luke's Hospital. They got him in to the angiogram right away, and after the neurosurgeon looked at it they took him straight to surgery.

Dad was in surgery for ~6 hours -- they took off a section of his skull and went in and clamped the blood supply to the aneurysm with titanium clips. The neurosurgeon said it was a very complicated aneurysm, and the anesthesiologist said it was the nastiest one he had ever seen. Dad remained on the ventilator overnight, but was able to be extubated on Saturday. He was talking to us on Saturday and Sunday - he wasn't opening his eyes yet and was having problems swallowing - in addition to right-sided paralysis as a small artery off the back of the aneurysm might have been clipped when the aneurysm was clipped. My dad is left-handed and therefore right-brained (thank God!!), while the surgery and aneurysm was in his left brain on the carotid artery behind his left eye. So he was talking (though he was mostly asleep) and grasping our hands and asking how we were and how he was doing. Unfortunately, Sunday evening he started having a difficult time breathing.