\nI really want to thank all the nurses and doctors and staff at UConn for their wonderful care. — Edith Heeber<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote><\/span><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Edith Heeber is back to living independently at her home in Enfield, pictured on Christmas Day 2022. A month later she turned 81. (Photo by Taryn Heeber-Doody)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Heeber, of Enfield, would spend most summer weekends camping with her daughter, Taryn Heeber-Doody, in the woods of Granville, Massachusetts. The weekend of July 10, 2021, was different.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s my camping buddy, she even used to stack wood,\u201d Heeber-Doody says. \u201cShe was supposed to go to the camp with me, but she stayed home because she wasn’t feeling that great, a little tired.\u201d<\/p>\n
But there was no indication her mother, 79 at the time, was on the path to a life-threatening brain hemorrhage the next day. Her son, Billy, found her in distress in her home early that Sunday morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just remember telling Billy to call 911, and I remember an ambulance coming, I remember a partial ride,\u201d Heeber says. \u201cThey evidently took me to St. Francis. I don’t remember them transferring me here.\u201d<\/p>\n
The transfer came in recognition of UConn Health\u2019s ability to handle cases of this magnitude, led by Dr. Ketan Bulsara<\/a>, chief neurosurgeon. Bulsara is internationally recognized as a pioneer in complex procedures, dually trained in skull base cerebrovascular microsurgery and endovascular neurosurgery.<\/p>\n
Dr. Ketan Bulsara is chief of UConn Health’s Division of Neurosurgery. (Photo by Janine Gelineau)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n \u201cWith this condition there\u2019s about an 80% risk of morbidity and mortality,\u201d Bulsara says. \u201cAbout 30% to 40% never make it to the hospital, the rest are left with potentially devastating consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr. Abner Gershon<\/a>, an interventional neuroradiologist, diagnosed Heeber with a dissecting aneurysm of her vertebrobasilar system based on initial imaging. Bulsara confirmed this with a cerebral angiography. He reconstructed the vertebrobasilar system using stents and eliminated the aneurysm.<\/p>\n
\u201cI walked in the room and I remember not knowing what to expect, and I remember stopping in my tracks,\u201d Heeber-Doody says. \u201cIt was just a shock. It was like, \u2018O my God\u2019 scary… she had a breathing tube down, she was completely out of it, all these machines and everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
She still has a photo from that moment, which she showed her mother while recounting the story.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, that would stop me in my tracks too,\u201d Heeber reacted. \u201cThat isn\u2019t me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Heeber-Doody would spend every day visiting her mother in the hospital.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust a lot of praying and a lot of talking to her just saying, \u2018Come on, you can\u2019t leave me, you’re my best friend. Come on. Holy God.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unable to have any dialog with her mother, Heeber-Doody started writing to her in a journal in hopes she eventually would wake up and be able to read it.<\/p>\n
Over the course of the next two weeks, she did wake up.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t remember any of it,\u201d Heeber says of her hospital stay. \u201cI don’t remember anybody coming to visit me. Although, according to the book, a lot of people came to visit. I don’t remember waking up here at UConn. I remember being at Mount Sinai, but I don’t know how long I was here before I went there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Mount Sinai Rehabilitation Hospital is where she went after a two-and-a-half-week stay at John Dempsey Hospital. Heeber-Doody remembers much more, including how happy she was with her mother\u2019s care at UConn Health.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were very impressed with this hospital and all the nurses and all the staff,\u201d Heeber-Doody says. \u201cThey were wonderful, absolutely wonderful. She had mentioned it\u2019s too bad it\u2019s so far [from home in Enfield], and I said, \u2018It doesn\u2019t even matter because we\u2019ll come here for whatever you need with your brain.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Heeber-Doody says one of the physicians who spent a lot of time with her mother was Dr. Gracia Mui<\/a>, a neurologist with co-director roles in UConn Health\u2019s stroke program and intensive care unit.<\/p>\n
Dr. Gracia Mui is co-director of UConn Health’s Stroke Center. (Photo by Tina Encarnacion)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n \u201cIt really takes a multi-disciplinary team to take care of patients with aneurysmal intracranial hemorrhages,\u201d Mui says. \u201cHealing from this disease can be a long, arduous road with many medical complications. Along with the neurosurgery team, our neurocritical care unit with neuro-intensivists, advanced practice providers, and phenomenal nurses can give these patients specialized care for the best chance at recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n
After less than a month of inpatient physical, speech and occupational therapy, Heeber was working with visiting nurses and physical therapists at home. Heeber-Doody moved back in to the house to help.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the time of her initial follow-up visit at three months, she had made an excellent recovery,\u201d Bulsara says.<\/p>\n
But now she would go on a watch list, of sorts.<\/p>\n
\u201cPatients who develop a spontaneous dissecting intracranial aneurysm are at high risk for developing new aneurysms of a similar etiology,\u201d Bulsara says. \u201cTherefore, she was closely monitored with surveillance imaging.\u201d<\/p>\n
Surveillance imaging includes a brain MRI and an angiogram, which allows physicians to visualize the blood vessels by injecting dye directly into them.<\/p>\n
And that is how her emergency care at UConn Health likely saved her life twice.<\/p>\n
More than a year after her July 2021 episode, a follow-up surveillance imaging appointment revealed something suspicious.<\/p>\n
\u201cDr. [Leo] Wolansky<\/a> [chief of radiology] noted the appearance of a new, very large middle cerebral artery perforator aneurysm on surveillance imaging,\u201d Bulsara says.<\/p>\n
To prevent a catastrophic brain bleed from this new aneurysm in a completely different location, urgent treatment was needed. It was two days before Thanksgiving. The intervention was an endovascular treatment where the surgeon accesses the femoral artery in the leg through a small puncture in the artery and navigates a small catheter to the brain and places coils to close the vessel feeding the aneurysm.<\/p>\n
Dr. Anthony Diaz, UConn neurosurgery resident, visits with Edith Heeber after a follow-up MRI. (Photo by Chris DeFrancesco)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n \u201cThe coils stop blood flow into the aneurysm and by doing so prevents it from rupturing.\u00a0 It also gives the vessel a chance to heal,\u201d says Dr. Anthony Diaz, a neurosurgery resident who trains under Bulsara and who was part of that case.<\/p>\n
If the second aneurysm went undetected and ruptured, \u201cIt probably would have lead to a devastating brain hemorrhage,\u201d Diaz says.<\/p>\n
A follow-up angiography showed the treatment was successful. She was discharged the day after the procedure and was home for Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n
Both of Heeber\u2019s procedures took place in the UConn John Dempsey Hospital\u2019s hybrid operating room, which is equipped to handle a wide range of complex procedures.<\/p>\n
Today, Heeber is back to living independently in her own home, with Heeber-Doody back in her own home, but both she and her brother are both nearby. Other than a walker to assist with balance, there are few visible signs of functional or cognitive deficits.<\/p>\n
And she just celebrated her 81st<\/sup> birthday Jan. 23.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really want to thank all the nurses and doctors and staff at UConn for their wonderful care,\u201d Heeber says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m amazed, I\u2019m truly amazed,\u201d Heeber-Doody says of her mother\u2019s journey.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Learn more about the <\/em>UConn Health Division of Neurosurgery<\/em><\/a> and the <\/em>UConn Health Stroke Center<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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