Don’t Worry About It, Go Home
by irms
(If you don’t already know the medical drama, you can start here, here, and here. Or you can read all the posts in the medical category.)
On Friday, January 10th I went to see Dr. Rao in Redwood City. Dr. Rao is considered an expert in his field, and this is what he told me:
You might recall that when I had my last catscan (CT Angiography) one of the radiologists reading the images thought he or she may have seen a connection between the left and right halves of the brain. That didn’t pan out. Dr. Rao confirms what Dr. Warwick and her team originally said: My brain’s hemispheres are isolated (each half of my brain cannot supply blood to the otherside if needed). This is a bummer, but not uncommon.
He also confirmed that at least one of vessels on the right side of my brain is narrower than the same vessel on the other side. He doesn’t believe that we’re talking high grade stenosis, but stenosis none-the-less. 30-40%, perhaps. (High grade is >70%.)
Both points are confirmed and can be considered old hat. But there was some new stuff too.
According to Dr. Rao, there’s nothing we can do about my situation. Even in a hypothetical worst case scenario, where the vessle is only letting through 1% of the blood — where the patient (that’s me) was passing out all the time and surviving strokes — there’s still nothing that can be done.
His reasoning is that the vessel is too close the bone and too U-shaped to straighten out.
Dr. Rao felt even preventive measures (like taking asprin/statins, or monitoring the progress of the stenosis with MRIs or CTs) are a wasted effort. There’s nothing to be done.
He said, “You’re otherwise a healthy young woman. Don’t worry about it, go home, and try not to think about it.”
Clearly, “not thinking about it” is out of the question.
How can two nuerologists, each consulting with experts come to the same physical conclusions and prescribe two completely opposite courses of action?
Fact A: I have isolated hemispheres of the brain. They cannot supply blood to each other.
Fact B: A blood-carrying vessel on one side is not carrying blood with the same throughput as it’s counterpart.
Fact C: A+B= increased risk of stroke.
Why — if there is any tiny chance an asprin a day could reduce the risk of a stroke — wouldn’t a doctor perscribe something benign? Or suggest that we keep tabs with regular checkups?
Could it be that there’s no hope? Or is there really “nothing to worry about”? If you ask neurologist #1 + consulting experts, “nothing to worry about” is not a possibility.
I’m lost. I was counting on coming back from Redwood City with some answers. Some arrows in my quiver. Instead, I came back more confused than before.
What do you make of it? Leave it in the comments.
How frustrating! Conflicting responses always drive me crazy. I’m on the side of the debate that says aspirin and regular checkups. In my naive dream of medical care, regular checkups would be to tell you how you are doing (all that data stuff/%) and, just maybe, where technology stands (I’m sure I am totally screwing this up and falling short, but you mentioned they couldn’t do surgery because it couldn’t happen at the same time vessels….okay, you know what I mean) or additional research in progress.