Your Son has Bleeding in his Brain from a Ruptured Anuerysm

Those aren't words a parent ever expects to hear...

Jake ended up at Children's this evening having emergency brain surgery due to a ruptured aneurysm. Around 5:15pm he came in complaining of a horrible headache on the right side of his head, I gave him some ibuprofen, he wanted to lay down. I went to check on him about 10 minutes later and he was unresponsive and something just didn't seem right so we decided to take him to the ER. On the way to the car, we decided to call 911 instead. After a CT scan at the ER and a flight for life to Children's, he was in surgery by 8:15. They had found an aneurysm in his right temporal lobe about centimeter in size that had burst and was causing severe brain swelling. They have no idea what caused him to have an aneurysm  it's very rare in kids and generally seen in much older people.

Surgery went as well as could be expected and they were able to remove the aneurysm and stop the bleeding. He has a pretty big chunk of his skull missing to give the brain room to expand which they will put back in place at some point in the future anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months from now. Due to more potential complications then I was able to absorb, the next 10 days are going to be pretty critical and I'm sure an emotional rollercoaster. He is currently heavily sedated while they wait for the swelling to come down. Even as I sit her writing this, I am numb and can't even contemplate sleep. I am having a hard time registering that our evening plans for the school carnival took such a drastic turn.

God does works in mysterious ways...Todd and Jake were supposed to be on a camping trip with scouts this weekend which we canceled earlier in the week. Had they gone and this happened, things could have ended up very differently. As of now, we don't know what his prognosis is and what, if any, long term damage he may have. I do know he's strong and we will all get through this. Todd and I would greatly appreciate your prayers over the next several days as Jake fights through this.