A silent killer
A brain aneurysm is a weakened, bulging area in a brain artery. If it ruptures, blood leaks into the space between the brain and skull, causing a life-threatening type of stroke known as a subarachnoid hemorrhage, according to the BAF.
An estimated 6.8 million Americans — about 1 in 50 — are living with an unruptured brain aneurysm.
Every year, 30,000 of those ticking time bombs explode, or one every 18 minutes. Half of those patients die within three months. Among survivors, two-thirds are left with permanent brain damage, per the BAF.
Julie Brothers
“It’s very important to get assessed and treated quickly,” Dr. Christopher Kellner, a cerebrovascular neurosurgeon and director of Mount Sinai’s Intracerebral Hemorrhage program, told The Post.
When Brothers arrived at the hospital, Kellner had one mission: stop the bleeding, repair the aneurysm and manage the damage that had already been done.
Julie Brothers
“When the aneurysm bleeds, the blood spreads very quickly and causes inflammation throughout the whole brain and in the arteries around the brain,” Kellner said. “That can cause seizures, increased fluid buildup and increased pressure.”
The inflammation can even trigger another stroke days later by squeezing arteries shut and choking off blood flow.
Just three hours after calling her Uber to Mount Sinai, Brothers was in surgery. Kellner performed an endovascular embolization, a minimally invasive procedure in which he threaded a catheter from an artery in her thigh up to her brain.
Through that small tube, he dropped a soft wire coil into the aneurysm, forming a clot that sealed off the leak and stopped the bleeding.
After that, recovery kicked off fast.
Julie Brothers
Two days post-op, Brothers was already sitting up and standing. With physical therapy, she trekked down hospital hallways, cheered on by nurses who high-fived her with every step.
“Even walking just a little bit would wear me out quite a bit,” Brothers said, adding that she was also struggling with light sensitivity, brain fog and trouble focusing.
Brothers expected to miss only a few days of work. Instead, she stayed in the hospital for three weeks — and it took three months before she was back on the job.
Four months after discharge on May 13, she completed the BAF’s annual 5K — with Kellner right by her side.
“He was floored to see me,” she said.
More than a year after the rupture, Brothers is living independently, traveling and back to work full-time. But the health scare changed her perspective.
“Life is for the living,” she said. “It’s not for the constant grind.”
