When most people think back to their wedding day, they are teary-eyed with nostalgia, wishing they could re-live the celebrations.
But Christy Aaron draws a blank.
Just two and a half weeks after she married husband Jake Aaron in September 2018, the small business owner, from Alabama, suffered a catastrophic brain bleed.
Doctors gave her a 10 percent chance of survival. She did survive, but can remember nothing of the three years leading up to the deadly attack.
‘Jake shows me videos and pictures of the wedding, but they don’t jolt my brain into remembering. To me, the pictures look like a woman at a wedding and nothing more,’ she said.
Christy and Jasper Aaron married in September 2018, but 17 days later Christy suffered a brain bleed that robbed her memory of the special day
Christy was rushed to University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital by helicopter after doctors discovered the bleed
Mrs Aaron, now 31, hopes to say ‘I do’ to her husband again in a wedding she will remember.
Her ordeal began with one evening in September 2018, when she noticed a migraine coming on.
She thought little of it, until she woke up the next morning feeling like her head was about to explode.
‘I was having migraines…I woke up burning up, so I jumped into the shower and stood under cold water,’ she told The Lede.
She had a very high temperature and her right leg felt numb.
They pitched up at Walker Baptist Medical Center, where doctors told Mrs Aaron her blood pressure was ‘through the roof.’
Drugs to try and bring her blood pressure down did not appear to work. Doctors decided to do a CT scan, as Mrs Aaron began slipping into a coma.
‘By this point she didn’t have much control over her body,’ her husband wrote in a Facebook post recounting the ordeal.
‘It was very difficult for me to hold her still enough for the scan.’
A doctor him that his wife had a bleed in her brain caused by a ruptured aneurysm and must be seen by a neurosurgeon as soon as possible.
She was rushed to University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital by helicopter, and after spending 57 days there and undergoing multiple surgeries, she was able to leave.
But the hard work was just beginning, as she had to relearn to talk and walk again.
Nearly six years after the aneurysm, she is still in physical and speech therapy, and has been left with vision issues.
The pair hope to redo their wedding but plan to wait until Mrs Aaron is back to full health.
A brain aneurysm is a bulge or ballooning blood vessel. It can leak, causing bleeding in the brain, which can be life threatening.
Symptoms of a ruptured aneurysm include a sudden, severe headache, nausea and vomiting, a stiff neck, blurred or double vision, sensitivity to light, seizure and loss of consciousness.
An unruptured aneurysm may not have any symptoms and could not require treatment.
The causes of brain aneurysms are often unclear, as was the case with Mrs Aaron’s.
Risk factors for brain bleeds include high blood pressure, smoking, heavy drinking and old age.
Treatment may include surgery or medication to restore blood flow and relieve pain.
