December 20, 2010

Unexpected

I had a every eye opening experience today.

It all started when I woke up this morning at 8:35am to a text from my mom saying,
" Call me ASAP, its about aunt Niqui"
(Niqui or Monquie is my dads brothers wife)
So after calling my mom I found out that she had a stroke and was in surgery.
No big deal right?!
WRONG
Two hours later i got another call from my mom informing me that my aunt had the surgery and was non-responsive and that she was going to die it was just a waiting game till she passed on.

"What the heck?!"
My aunt is 51 years old in extremely good heath, she ate right, worked out, and had no medical issues.

After arriving at the hospital we were informed of the story of what happened that goes like this:
Around 11:00am Sunday morning My aunt and uncle were getting ready to go clean out their rental house. My uncle went out to load up the truck while my aunt went to get the cleaning supplies.He was outside for maybe 5min. When he went back into the house to find my aunt face down on the kitchen floor. She was not responding to her name, tapping, anything.
My uncle grab a flash light and one of her eyes was dilated the other wasn't.
He took her to the Scottsdale Osborn Hospital
At 11:30 she had a cat scan were they found a blood clot in her brain which caused her to have a massive stroke. So to hopefully get ride of the clot they gave her an EXTREME blood thinner and placed her in surgery.
at 12:45 she came out of surgery. The surgery was a success.
1pm they did another cat scan and found that a massive bleed was in her brain from the blood thinner. Causing extreme pressure on her brain.They then placed her back into surgery to relieve the presser. They cut out a piece of her skull. After the surgery they did texts and found out that the left side of her brain was not pulsing (your brain pluses as your heart beats) with her brain not pulsing they called her brain dead and non-recoverable.

What they found out had happened to her was she had a dease called Fibro Muscular Displaycia.
This is found in 1-1,000 women starting at the age of 45. Fibro Muscular Displaycia creates fibers to build in the muscles. Well Niqui had this but in her crauted artery. This is 1-1,000,000 people get it in their carotid artery. FMD is Non-detectable, non-preventable, and non-treatable. The best way to explain what happens when someone gets FMD is like the 101 being closed down to one lane and the blood clot is like a semi-truck. It goes through her carotid artery and creates MAJOR discretion and the clot to get into her brain.

So as of right now we are waiting 72 hours for her brain to stop swelling so the doctors can asses the damage and figure out what of her organs can be donated.

This came unexpected. Niqui was such a wonderful person. So kind, loving, beautiful and giving. She always thought of everyone first, and at this time of the year it makes me take a step back even more and look at my life. Life is to short and you never know what will happen. Live life to the fullest and take NOTHING for granted!

She will be forever loved and forever missed.