Mrs vt90 started complaining of a severe headache after dinner. Fast forward to 3:00 am when she woke me up and said the words I will never forget ... 'there is something wrong with me'. She is a tough cookie and when she said that I knew this was not just a migraine. We scrambled and got to the ER by 3:15 am. After two MRIs of her brain, she was airlifted to MedStar in DC and underwent a 4+ hour procedure to coil a ruptured brain aneurysm. At that point her neurosurgeon said survival was a 'coin flip' and that permanent damage was 'more likely than not'. She spent 15 days in ICU. As a family we missed our son's VT graduation and a family trip to Punta Cana for Christmas but obviously all of that was secondary to her recovery. While she was in her 4 hour procedure I cancelled hotel reservations in Blacksburg and dealt with airlines and the resort to reschedule our Punta Cana Christmas by exactly one year. She was discharged on December 29th and recovered steadily at home for many weeks. She was doing physical therapy and it was pretty apparent to everyone that knew her that she was going to fully recover. There was no long term damage to her speech, movement, sight, hearing, or anything else. She had trouble following simple instructions (she didn't like it when I told her doctor that was normal) and she had very little memory of the second half of December but this appeared to be a miracle. At our first follow-up with the neurosurgeon he said he had never seen a patient do this well after such a devastating brain bleed. She returned to work full time in late February and hasn't missed a scheduled day of work. Fast forward to June when they did an angiogram of the brain to evaluate the success of the coil that stopped the bleeding. We received the unfortunate news that the aneurysm was growing again and was at risk of a second rupture - that would have been catastrophic. In July she underwent a second procedure to insert a blood flow diverter/stent intended to bypass the path where the aneurysm was. Immediately after the procedure the neurosurgeon bragged that he 'nailed it' and showed me a picture of how the stent was 'dead center' around the aneurysm. My wife spent another night in ICU for monitoring and was discharged with a prescription for a blood thinner (6 months) and baby aspirin (for life). Fast forward again to this morning. She just had another angiogram and her neurosurgeon said she was 'cured' and showed me pictures where the aneurysm is literally gone. The stent worked and with no blood getting to the artery, it simply died off. She can now discontinue the blood thinners and we don't have to see the doctor again for a year. This is going to be the best (and most thankful) Christmas ever. Our entire family heads to Punta Cana next Tuesday for a well-deserved and much anticipated Christmas celebration. I know many of you have sent positive vibes and prayers and I want to thank you for that - they worked. God is great ... and so is the neurosurgeon.