A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born. ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

My daughter came with me to the specialist's appointment on 6 August.  I wanted someone else to hear what they had to say, so I knew I wouldn't be over-reacting when I passed the info along the chain.  Over-reacting probably isn't a consideration in a circumstance like this.  When you have something so unknown diagnosed, you simply don't know how to react.

We were pretty much the only ones in the waiting from, which really surprised me considering this is the public hospital system.  Still, it worked definitely in my favour because I was quite calm when we got into the NS Registrar's office.  He was friendly and informative, and laid out the usual situation regarding cerebral aneurysms in a person my age.  Turns out that - contrary to what society thinks - 56 is "young" for an aneurysm, hence they prefer to treat those over 5mm in order to give the best recovery advantage.  (My daughter thought it was highly amusing that I was considered "young"!)

There were plenty of not-so-good stats as well, confirming to a large degree what I had already Googled.  The odds of a brain aneurysm rupturing may not be high, but that is more because they don't know enough about the cause of them at this time, despite such advanced medical treatment available.  The odds increase with age, but size is not necessarily a factor - some very small ones can and have

ruptured.  This is the bit I found the scariest:

• 20% of those with a rupture will not make it to a hospital.
• A further 20% will make it there but die before they are diagnosed.
• Of the remaining 60%, more than half will have some residual detrimental effects - such as loss of vision, speech, etc (similar to stroke).
• Only 1 in 5 whose aneurysm has ruptured will have no adverse effects at all.

Not good survival odds, but I have no control over them.

I asked about restrictions - could I fly, specifically, as I had a trip back to visit friends in NZ booked.  No restrictions, he said - again, for the simple reason that they don't know enough about why some rupture and many don't.  No point in placing restrictions on something that you have no idea will ever happen.

So, the next stage is a four-vessel angiogram to "better clarify the aneurysm".

Time to ask Dr Google about that procedure!