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On August 16, 2001 my daughter Michelle Marie Lileks, who was 10 and a half years old, died of a brain aneurysm on my couch in her sleep at 9:40 am. 17 years later, I still go through shock of her death.

I would like to show my appreciation for what this foundation is for. I am from Canada and I hope the work done here will make it to my country. I have a personal interest in this as about ten years ago my best friend died of an aneurysm. I still have not really gotten over the shock of it. I saw him a few days before and he was his normal self. Three days later I heard he died. I was so sad that my friend was gone. I hope the efforts put forth here will save someone else’s best friend or loved ones then. I thank Lisa foundation.

My name is Maggie my son Robert(Bobby) are suffer from Brain aneurysm is happened on the July 14 2018 that when I took him to the ER they make us wait for almost 5 hours and it progressively to worsened by the hour until at 11 pm he was lost consciousness then there was one doctor that keep slapping him and when they try to scoot him to bed from the wheelchair they hit his head to the wall twice and keep slapped him around try to wake him up even though the urine an blood test was negative they think he was using drug but my son was Autism and mentally delay he don't use drug because he hardly leave the house if he leave the house usually he always with family, I told that to the doctor but she won't listened then there is another doctor pass by then shouting he is seizing then they give him meds and he told them to take him to scanned that save him because as soon as he see they induced the coma and put the breathing tube on him and airlifted him to different hospital that save his life with 5 surgery and 2 procedure on the august 03 2018 the intervention hospital send him back to the original hospital then they proceed to mistreating him first they forgot to feed him through the G-tube continuous feed for 2 days and also they don't have the osmolite to feed him then when I advocate for him they finally doing investigate and apologize and also there were other incident until figure it out which nurse that we need to avoid then they move him to the different floor and we start all over again. I am so scared and upset because we don't have the insurance and we still apply to SSI because he's 19 yo no rehab close to our house will take him and the hospital after struggle to explain is not safe in the house we don't have anyone to watch over him they finally agree to get him stay but they way they treated him is poorly so on Thursday 09/20/2018 when I came in and see him like everyday we come to visit after work 6:30 pm we see him in the state of mess his face full of chocolate because he feeds him self with soft diet his left side on the body was partially paralyze but the feeling slowly back and his left hand is contracted therefore is hard to eat by his self so when we see him thoroughly dirty there was crumb every where I am upset no wonder he been call me and text me all day also I see him where the nurse leave him at the jerry chair alone and I try to call the nurse to ask where his helmet or why the boot fell out and then I explain to the nurse that he is mentally delay so his age is 19 but he act like 8 after the incident so he need to be watch before he almost undue the harness because he think he can walk so when we visit that night we are upset because what happen all day and see him in the state his in make me upset then when I question the tech I was a little bit rude to ask of the gown and clean sheets so I can change but the she was upset then she proceed to lie and told the nursing director that I called her "Bitch" when I am not called her that but I over heard her ask her other college that she scared to get fired so her friend say I will fix this then she call and lie to her director then the director come after I called him to report that but he come charging and told us that we trespassed the hospital and proceed to throw us out without asking about our side then when we were escorted by police who don't even ask our side he just stated he do what the hospital want not what was right my husband at the elevator having a grand Mal attack and having seizure because he is epileptic then I was fainted which I don't remember why so they want to throw us out but the other people told him no they have to treated us first then the nursing director was there and told all the staff at the ER to release us as soon as possible the banned us from visiting our son. In the morning I called the administrator than was aware all our struggle than asked if he can help us and also I want to move my son back to the original floor so after about 2 hours later they call me back then told me the lifted the trespass and I can come but there were a rules to follow only one call in the morning and one at night and we can not harassed the nurse or tech to asked for help if he was wet he have to do it himself and also supervised visit and only 1 at the time but if my daughter with us she can stay at the room with the brother so I just say okay because I want to visit my son and I have nothing to hide which is surprise them because the director seem to be wanting to actually arrest me because if I not complied to the demand and also I told her I want him to be treated fairly and we will not have to asked all the time and I won't them to comply with the order like he need to be turn every 2 hours to avoiding bed sore and also the boots every 2 hours because the foot drop that he have but they haven't do that at all then yesterday when I finally visit I see they put the boot and turn him I told her the nursing director all this could be avoided if they just treated him like a patient and person also they will have to do what best for him just because we are poor and no insurance except the medically needy we will pay what we can to get our son treatment also I told them from the beginning we will do everything to apply to the help out there that will be able to help and this morning I see the show on the fox and friend I decide to share his story. Please help us we don't know what we can do to help him also the agency and support system that will be able to help. thank you

I was 18, had never had a problem with headaches, and was working a good summer job to pay for university the next year. I was lucky enough to get off work early that day, or I would have been driving on the highway when I had my aneurism. As it was I was home watching tv when the nuclear weapons testing started inside my head. The pain was indescribable. I immediately lost peripheral vision, and could only see grey out the sides of my eyes. I also immediately started vomiting, and was on bile within 5 minutes. The doctors later said has I lost consciousness or had a seizure I would have died alone on the floor. As this was happening I was able to call my mom. When I told her I couldn’t see properly anymore she told me she would call an ambulance. The next thing I remember I was In an ambulance, then I next remember being in hospital emergency room. They thought I was OD’ing on something and just wanted me to puke it out. I told them something was seriously wrong and then puked on the floor, telling them I would continue doing so until I saw a doctor. Next thing I remember I’m in a quiet dark room in a different hospital, it’s now night time, and my parents are in the room. The doctor is looking at my like I’m a science project, and my parents look really really scared. Apparently all the times I blacked out I was actually conscious and just don’t remember it. I was lucky though, Canada has great medicine for free, and my Dr studied under Charles Drake, who apparently invented the clipping process. They ran cat scans and did a cerebral angiogram to find the aneurism, which was a subarachnoid on the carotid artery. They did surgery the next day, and it took just under 14 hrs. I have one still clip in my brain, 4 steel stitches in my skull, and an ENORMOUS scar that took over 100 stitches to close. I was two weeks in hospital recovering and a year before I could swim under water and not feel the pressure pushing in on my skull. All that was 21 yrs ago and I’ve had problems with migraines and been unable to work steadily since.

Karen. George-Durieux from Staten Island, NY written on September 3, 2018 at 3:26. My name is Karen, I am a Brain-Aneurysm survivor. On February 9, 1990 God's blessing of healing showered my life. By God's grace, mercy, healing blessings and Dr. Steinberger's knowledgeable team of good doctors at Englewood Hospital in Englewood, NJ. I am living my second life! My Brain-Aneurysm journey, began with a painful-headache that last 1 week. At the end of that week. I went to take a shower and collapsed in the bath-tub. I tried to get myself up but fill back down. God, literally got me out of the tub. I crawled on the bathroom floor and leaned on the wall. As a saved woman of God. I remembered, asking God "Are you ready for me now." I immediately got the strength to hold the door knob and pull myself up. Wrapped a towel around me. Opened the front door of the 3 bedroom apartment on the fourth floor of a Brownstone home. Which at that time I was sharing with two other people. My entire left side was paralyzed, my head hanging on the left and I could not lift it up because of severe pain. Unable to speak was a problem to collaborate. I dragged through the front door, knocking on each apartment door, no one came out or so I thought. I got to the ground floor. A door opened, with four men telling me to come in! I looked at them with an "evil" eye, not being able to speak and dragged back up the four flights of steps. As I got back into the apartment, the house phone rang. I was glad, because I felt alone. Thank God, a cousin of mine, a nurse, called to thank me for the food I sent her. I could not respond, so she started to scream. I remember she told me she called the cops and the ambulance is coming for me. Taking me to Kings County Hospital. I remember the Medics came and they told me they will dress me. I shock my head meaning "NO." I dragged to my room, and pulled clothes on. I refused to get on the stretcher but when I got down on the ground floor they told me, I will have to get on the stretcher NOW. When I got in the Ambulance, every hole in the road the vehicle went in I felt My head was going to "EXPLODE." I remember, I did get to Kings County Hospital, a doctor asking me what is wrong. I pointed to the left side of my head. Two days, from Monday morning to Wednesday night no one in my family could find me at the hospital! I was discharged, Wednesday at 9:00pm. Dragged to New York Ave Brooklyn, NY and got on a bus to Carol St. Dragged 5 blocks across to my address and got up the four flights of steps. Laid on the bed when the telephone rang. The family I was working for in Tenafly, NJ kept in touch, with my family and were concerned about me. Since the hospital denied no one with that name is admitted there. They immediately sent a limo to pick me up. I remember arriving at their home. The next day, the family took care of their children. During the course of the day my boss kept calling the house but no answer. She decided to come home I was in a "coma." I was rushed to the Englewood Hospital. The cat scan showed nothing. The doctors, then injected me with the dye that lit up my entire system. Bam, the brain-aneurysm was already dripping in my brain. They had to do an emergency surgery which lasted 10 hours. I was in ICU for 3 weeks, my stay in hospital lasted 4 months. All I remembered, getting to the family's house on that Wednesday night and walking through this BEAUTIFUL garden of flowers. There was no end in site of colors of every imaginable shade, clean, the atmosphere was so bright, and peaceful! I kept jumping for joy going through such beauty! Then I heard a voice said to me "go back" 3 times. Life is a beautiful thing! As human beings we must cherish this gift with obedience!

On October 29, 2017 I had an aneurysm (SAH). Thank God and the team at Mount Sinai Hospital on Amsterdam and on Madison Avenues in Manhattan working with my Neuro Surgeon Dr. Mocco, I am here today to tell my story. I got an intense pain above my right eye and it was so bad that I called 911. All I remember is my daughter and the paramedics coming to my aid and then I must have passed out because I remember waking up in the hospital bed and seeing my daughter and ex husband. I recall bits and pieces of visits I had from a few dear friends and a young man explaining coiling and how it was the best method they would use to stop the bleed. Then I had the best dreams ever where I saw beautiful colors and recall asking God to take care of my little girl and seeing clouds forming hands holding my daughter. Whether it was a divine revelation that everything would be okay or my injury, I accepted it all. I stood in the hospital for nearly three weeks. The physical therapy department helped me get on my feet and walking around the ward and then on my own. It was not easy as I saw everything double and needed to wear an eye patch. I also had difficulty hearing out of my right ear and my appetite at first was not so good. I eventually ate pretty much everything that was given to me including all of the medication and it was a lot. I needed to take sodium pills because for some reason my brain kept causing my body to flush all my sodium. I was in so much pain and discomfort. The Nursing department at Mount Sinai was the best. These nurses kept me pain free as possible and content. Both daytime and especially the night time nurses. I never knew I could have an aneurysm. I had been caring for my mother at home with the help if my daughter who is the only biological granddaughter and a few if our close friends. We suffered from caregiver fatigue and pretty much exhausted ourselves managing my mom who had been diagnosed the previous year with Lewy Body Dementia and it quickly debilitated her. She lost her battle with her illness and now I am left to manage my 91 year old father with my daughter's help. Today I take the steps necessary to ensure this a aneurysm does not happen again. I am scheduled to have an Angiogram soon and hopefully nothing further is found. Dr. Mocco tells me that the recovery is between one and two years and my primary doctor, Dr. Gary Carpenter assures me that he will monitor me closely to make sure I do recover completely. Dr. Carpenter was able to see that I am anemic and have Vitamin D deficiency. He referred ne to a great Cardiologist Dr. Gina Day to make sure I am clear for my upcoming Angiogram. I am thankful for the medical attention I had and I continue to have right now. Lesson learned is to value yourself and if you face the challenge of caring for a loved one that no one else wants to take care of like I faced, ask for professional help so you do not exhaust yourself.

October 29 2013, my mom had a massive brain aneurysm at the age of 57. I discovered her in the bathroom and dialed 911, after being air lifted to a city hospital she was pronounced brain dead and placed on life support. We spent three days in hospital with her saying our goodbyes and finalizing her wish for organ donation. This was the worst time of my life to date. My mom was my best friend, and was an amazing and world class human being. I miss her every day! She had no warnings that we are aware of, she rarely suffered headaches but believe she must have been struggling with one that morning, as she had a bottle of Advil on the counter. She was a non smoker, and non drinker. She did suffer from elevated blood pressure and had a very stressful event happen the night before (discovered her father and nephew were in hospital). I was told by her neuro surgeon in hospital that there is a chance that this was hereditary and that I and my sister should get checked out. I had planned to get checked sooner than later, however got pregnant with my daughter (my mom's first grandchild) two months after her passing. After waiting till my daughter was a year old I got checked and sure enough they found a 8mm aneurysm, which I soon there after got coiled. It has been three years now and I have been going for annual MRIs to have it checked and it all looks good. Having lived through my mom's passing and being a new first time mother I was scared! I knew that I had to get checked and I had to have the surgery no matter how scared I was.....for my daughter's sake. I never suffered headaches or blood pressure issues before and now since having surgery I am more prone to headaches. I try now to raise awareness about the early detection and saving lives, if I can prevent one other person from experiencing this then this has all been worth it.

I always had my family and friends over to my house on Easter Sunday to celebrate. I made it a big deal for the children with personalized baskets, pinatas, a jumper and of course lots of food and treats. Because of the mess afterwards I always took the Monday after off work to clean. On Tuesday, the 22nd, I was on my last break when my nose suddenly felt numb and itchy at the same time. I wiped the tip of my nose with the top of my knuckle and when I looked there was a very tiny blood clot. My first thought was I was going to have a nosebleed so I went back to my desk to relax and put my head back. Nothing more happened so I finished my shift and left work. As I was driving home while stopped at a light I looked up at 3 palm trees in a center divider planter start to hopscotch over each other and knew I was in trouble. I made my left turn & pulled over. Luckily I wasn't far from home so when I felt better I started driving again. My daughter, son in law and 3yr old granddaughter were getting ready to leave & I asked them to wait until I put my things in the house so I could say hi to my granddaughter. They were remodeling my house with a family friend who was still inside finishing the cleanup of the days work. He asked me what I'd like to have done the next day & when I tried to answer him I started to stutter and my words were slurred. According to him I went very pale and moved like I was in slow motion so he told me to go lay down and he'd check on me in 5 minutes. I made it to my room but screamed then collapsed and my head went between my bed frame and nightstand. Luckily he heard my stream and came running. He carried me outside and yelled for my daughter to call 911. I started seizing and vomiting then my eyeballs popped out. I had blown 2 brain aneurysms, one on each side & just above each eye. It took 5 days and 3 hospital transfers to get stable enough for surgery and to also find a neurosurgeon who was knowledgeable enough to do the surgeries necessary to save my life. The hospital told my family I only had a 1% chance of survival and they should make funeral arrangements asap. My family was also told if I did survive I'd most likely be in a vegetative state for the rest of my life. I have had 4 brain surgeries in total and have proven the hospital wrong. I went back to work a year later, I'm walking, talking, cooking, driving, etc. I'm actually in the medical books and journals because I am the only known person to have suffered double brain aneurysms to survive and be completely functional again. I do have memories and skills that I've lost such as other languages I was fluent in and instruments I used to be able to play but I have my precious family including many more grandbabies and amazing son in laws our family has been blessed to include. I honestly think that if I had had any other neurosurgeon I wouldn't have survived let alone be functional. Thank you Dr. Marc Vanefsky. Your still mine and my family's hero ?

I am writing this entry on behalf of my mum, Carol Ann Daly. My mum died on the 3rd of July 2018 after suffering a sub-arachnal brain hemmorraghe that was caused by a brain aneurysm at the age of 52. It was an ordinary day and we had some friends staying with us from Australia and after we had got ready we where about to leave the house to go out for a nice meal together. As we where about to leave my mum went upstairs to get her jacket and she began to complain to my dad of an almost unbearable pain in the centre of her head. My mum had been suffering with minor headaches for a while so my dad didn’t think much of it so he just came to stairs to fetch her some pain-killers. He gave me the tablets to take upstairs to my mum but as I looked around, she wasn’t there, so I came back downstairs to tell my dad. At this point everyone was gathering round the door ready to leave so we all started looking and shouting for her, my dad then glanced into the front room and saw her slumped, sitting on the couch. My dad got to her straight away and realised she wasn’t breathing and was unresponsive so I called an ambulance. On the phone they gave us instructions on how to try and get her breathing again. After about 90 seconds we had layer her onto the floor and managed to open her airway so but her breaths where very delayed. The paramedics then arrived and she began to mumbling some words but they where not very clear and she was suffering with double vision. When she was transported to the ambulance we where first took to our local hospital where they done a scan to try and find out what the problem was and when we got the results that it was a sub-arachnal brain hemmorraghe caused by an aneurysm we where very shocked. The hospital then made the call to transfer my mum to a specialist hospital for neuroscience called the Walton Centre. On arrival to this hospital my mum had a second bleed on the brain alongside in-noticed aspiration of vomit into the lungs which meant she was struggling to breathe so the doctors put her into a medically induced coma. Whilst under the sedation the doctors where allowed to keep my mum stable and keep a close eye on her brain activity. After two days of allowing the brain to rest the doctors decided to take my mum into theatre for an operation called coiling and explained that this procedure would prevent my mum from having any more bleeds in her recovery and moving on into the future, although they also had to warn us that doing this operation could leave the risk of a further stroke happening in the next 14 to 21 days, but the benefits of doing this procedure far out-weighed the risks.So they went ahead with the operation but unfortunately, in the middle of the procedure my mum sufferd a third bleed but because they could see it on screen they could deal with it very quickly. They kept my mum on full sedation after her operation for two days, this was to give her brain time to rest. After that they then began to lower her levels of sedation and she slowly began to become more responsive as time went on, she would be moving her head side to side and opening her eyes fully alongside squeezing my hands and wiggling her feet and toes. As they carried on to lower her sedation she got down to only 25% overnight but after speaking to the doctors they explained to us that she did not react very well to such low levels of sedation as she was vomiting and was very agitated, they said that this was quite common in some patients and may just be because they are not ready yet. In the early hours of the next day the doctors told us that her temperature had been very high and that at some points it was reaching up to 43 degrees and told us that this could be because the thermo-regulation in her brain may not be working due to the blood load in her head. So they had to bring her temperature down for her by using cooling pads all over her body and put her sedation back up quite high to keep her calm and comfertable as they didn’t want her to feel to cold and start shivering. She was kept like this for a day then the early hours of the next day me and my dad got called in at 3am and was told that my mum had suffer another stroke called infraction that was causing major swelling in one side of the brain they realised this when one of my mums pupils became unreactive. So they took her down for a scan a we where told the results by the time we arrived there. They showed that the infraction took place under the aneurysm and the swelling was spreading around the brain. A few minutes later her second pupil became unreactive, proving that the whole brain was now swollen and in a crushing state due to the pressure it was holding against the skull. The consultants the game to us and explained how there is no medical cure or solution in this situation and that my mum would not be waking up. They then went on to say that when death is suspected they are legally required to complete a brain stem test to lawfully confirm death. This test confirmed my mother’s death and she was pronounced dead on the 3rd of July 2018. In the passing days after this my dad told me that he was seeing some memory alterations and forgetfulness in my mums day to day routine, the doctors told us even little things like this can be discrete symptoms. Maybe if my family was more educated on the causes and symptoms of this, things may have been different but in my mums memory I would like to share our story and try my best to help prevent anything like this to happening to anybody else. I love you mum, you will be forever missed.