Kim Tebby loves her life, and has no qualms saying so. She adores her husband, her family and her job. Bubbly and effervescent, she’s the kind of person you want to sit next to through life. But a year ago, a series of unfortunate events led Kim down a very unexpected road. A domino of progressive symptoms ended with a diagnosis she had never even heard of before.
The first sign of trouble was, as Kim describes it, “a crazy-insane bad headache,” followed by vertigo, extreme fatigue and a lopsided smile. Kim started forgetting things and felt exhausted by the end of the day. Her co-workers noticed. Her husband worried.
Over the months that followed, Kim’s symptoms broadened to include her eyesight, so she went to see her ophthalmologist. She concluded that Kim had lost a bit of vision in both her eyes in the same spot, an unusual finding that could be a red flag for a bigger problem.
Kim was sent for an MRI where that problem was finally confirmed: she had four aneurysms in her brain. It was news that she found hard to understand. “I said, ‘am I going to die’? Again, I was so upset I didn’t know.” Kim was told that if one burst, it could be deadly.
Aneurysms are a ballooning in a weakened blood vessel, and can trigger a life-threatening bleed if they rupture. They affect about four per cent of the population, and most commonly strike in the prime of a person’s life. While not all require treatment — including extremely small aneurysms — many do go undetected until it’s too late.
Thankfully, Kim’s condition had been diagnosed in time. She was referred to Sunnybrook, where surgeons are hitting back with a non-invasive surgical approach called endovascular treatment. As neurosurgeon Dr. Leo da Costa explains, it’s a game changer because the patient’s head doesn’t need to be opened during surgery.
“You make a puncture in the groin and you push the catheters up under continuous guidance of the x-ray and you are able to place catheters inside the vessel that feeds the aneurysm,” he says.
These catheters snake inside the bulging portion, essentially cutting off blood flow and the danger of a rupture.
Not everyone is a candidate for endovascular treatment, as it depends on the size and location of the aneurysm. But Dr. da Costa says it is another important option in the toolbox. Because it’s less invasive, endovascular treatment offers patients many benefits, including reaching previously untreatable aneurysms, a reduced risk of complications and a shorter recovery. Most patients, like Kim, go home the next day.
A year ago, Kim almost lost it all. “I have the most amazing life, so when I found out all of this, I was pretty devastated.” Today, she’s got her sights set back on the bright side of things. “I wish there was a word stronger than ‘thank you’. I really do, because how do you say thank you to somebody who has saved your life?”
