A Family Aneurysm Story

I recently posted this on the Brain Aneurysm Survivors Facebook group.

A family aneurysm story. This is a hundred year old photo of my grandparents George Emery and Katherine Galvin at a costume ball in 1919. He would die young from a ruptured brain aneurysm and sadly she would die even younger in childbirth delivering their fifth child and first daughter. Their children all had large families but my grandfather would only get to meet the first of his 34 grandchildren. Two of his sons including my father would die in their 40s from ruptured aneurysms. Their daughter is still with us but an aneurysm was discovered in her brain about ten years ago. A third of his grandchildren have also had multiple aneurysms including me and three siblings. Two cousins, who had not been tested, died from sudden ruptures and four, me and my siblings, have had clipping surgeries after positive scanning. A few other cousins have had aneurysms discovered and closely monitored and many of us have had more discovered over the years. In my own case I had two found in 1988 with one clipped a few months later while the other was considered at the time to be inoperable. Two smaller ones showed up over the years as scanning technology improved and I continue to get scanned every two years. I live with them. My grandparents would have many great-grandchildren and great-great grandchildren now and my daughter is the only one to test positive so far. She has recently had two coiling procedures and a clipping craniotomy right after giving birth to her second child. We were able to stay with her and her family for several weeks following each of her three operations this past year and thankfully she has fully recovered. I guess the point to all of this is to get your families tested. It saves lives.