Natasha Richardson, TBI and thinking about death

This entry is part 14 of 20 in the series Aneurysm

Aneurysm

The BrainI don’t want to write about her–but I can’t not, because my mind won’t go anywhere else. Since word of her skiing accident first came in, I can’t not–think about her, that is, in one way or another.

Until the actual announcement of her death late Wednesday, I was traveling the road with her in the Traumatic Brain Injury bus. I guess a ruptured cerebral aneurysm isn’t really a TBI, but the the consequences of the two things are the same. Blood in the brain where it shouldn’t be. Swelling. Pressure. Destroyed brain tissue. Coma, death. Okay, the last two didn’t happen to me, but the first three did, and I guess it’s only natural that my mind goes to that experience when I hear about something similar.

It’s a part of my life that is uniquely mine and uniquely personal and, in some ways, ever-present. It’s there when I’m standing in the shower washing my hair and I suddenly feel like big, glob-like lump at the side of my skull that is the shunt. Damn–that’s weird! Then I can’t help but creep my fingers down my neck following the tubing right below the surface of my skin where it travels down my neck, over my chest and then–what? I can’t feel it anymore but I know it goes into my stomach. Sometimes the tubing feels so discrete to me, I know I could pick it up through my skin. Pull it, and–but of course, I don’t. And wouldn’t. Still–it’s there, a foreign part of me. I wonder when I die what will happen to it. Will the embalmers pull it out? If I’m cremated, will the shunt become a glob of melted plastic among my ashes? Or will my flesh disintegrate around it, leaving just the shunt and my bones for some future world archeologist to discover.

Yes, I think about death. Not all the time, or even a lot, but it’s there somewhere in the back of my mind. Maybe because of my ride on the TBI bus I’m not so much afraid of it. I’m not looking for it; I don’t want it. But I’ve arrived, I guess, at that point in my life where I see that–hey, guys! I ain’t gonna live forever. That’s sort of shocking in a way. Not that I won’t live forever, but that there will be a time when I, my particular consciousness, won’t be experiencing the world, won’t be in the world, won’t be of the world.

I wonder if Natasha Richardson had any presentiment of what lay ahead. According to the reports, she seemed to brush off the idea that anything could come of her fall. Was that because at 45, she still felt immortal? I’m sure I did when I was 45. But now–now I know better.

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Tagged as: cerebral aneurysm, death and dying, midlife issues

  • http://midlifebloggers.com byjane

    ernie: I was the one with the aneurysm…

  • ernie

    I don’t know if it’s been mentioned above but she did not have an aneurysm – she had what’s called an epidural hematoma. It’s related to trauma when she fell. Her death was potentially preventable if she had been taken to a hospital that handles these traumas. A delay of even an hour in getting to the OR for surgery can be the difference between life and death. That’s the real tragedy.

  • http://midlifebloggers.com byjane

    I couldn’t agree more. When I lived in England, my family had a standing order that if I should ever get really sick–send me home! I’m sure at some point we’ll get a tell-all with a time-line of what she went through and what wasn’t done.

  • http://www.sasstown.com the Mayor

    Wow Jane, that’s quite a thing to have survived. I was thinking about her death again today after hearing it discussed on the news today, questioning the level and delay of medical care she received. I related it back to 1996 when my son was airlifted with severe injuries after an auto accident. I am so thankful today for the ever criticized US health care system. Even 13 years ago a helicopter was used to transport him and that care was given immediately and competently not knowing for one minute if he had insurance or not.I’m so glad they didn’t wait to do a cost/benefit analysis before they did a CAT scan.

  • http://midlifebloggers.com byjane

    Gaile: I guess I don’t believe in randomness. When I had the shunt put in, it was like I’d been to Lourdes: one day I couldn’t walk, talk or think straight (ataxia) and the next day I could. I hope your sister’s situation works out similarly. If you want to email me, please do…. byjane73(at)gmail.com

  • http://gaile.ca Gaile

    How random that I found this post today. My baby sister is in the hospital awaiting surgery for the something similar. We thought she’d had a stroke last week, but the doctors say it’s an aneurysm at the base of her brain. They are still running tests (her medical history is complicated), but have indicated they want to put a shunt in. I am terrified we will lose her, and she is only 50 years old. I am reading your blog post now. Thank you for sharing your experience.

  • http://www.womenbloom.com/blog Allison

    Jane, I remember seeing a passing reference to this but had no idea the full extent. I think we’re all glad you made it through…I can’t imagine how such an experience changes the way you see your life. I expect it never leaves you.

    RE: Natasha. Having lost my husband suddenly in an accident, I can relate to the incomprehension and shock of losing someone who was alive and well when you saw them only a few hours before. I couldn’t help but think of Liam Neeson’s character in Love Actually…it’s a horrible horrible thing to go through. It’s been 15 years and something like this can call up the emotions I went through. I feel so badly for the family. It was really on my mind for a few days.

  • Dorothy

    Janey, you have never once been rude to me in your whole life! Don’t be crazy-talkin’ me now! Honestly…I was just so happy you were talking to me…I don’t know what either one of us said. It was all about the connection.

  • http://midlifebloggers.com byjane

    babs m: “Live every minute” — that is just so hard to do. I get so caught up in tomorrow and next week and this and that…. But on the larger things, the big stuff of life–there I’m a different person than I was pre-aneurysm. “Life is too short” might be my motto now, as in: too short to put up with bs or toxic situations or going along to get along, etc. etc. etc.

  • http://awalkabout.wordpress.com babs m

    I’ve actually been more upset about this death than of several recent deaths of people I’ve actually known. It’s so very sad. And scary. And prophetic for each of us all at the same time. You never know when it will be your time. Live every minute.

  • http://midlifebloggers.com byjane

    Do,
    I still feel guilty about that phone call you made to me in the ICU. I got them to put a real phone in my room on threat of using my cell phone. It was a couple of days after the aneurysm and I was strapped to the bed, tubes coming from everywhere, but when the phone rang, I was–as my mother had taught me–perkier than hell. So you started having a normal conversation, and I think I passed out or something. Or did I dream it? All I know is I regret being rude to you on the phone when I had the aneurysm. Do you forgive me, dearest Do?????

  • Dorothy

    Oh Janey. I have been positively obsessed with Natasha Richardson’s story. Haven’t quite been able to pinpoint why, exactly, and you nailed it for me. She forces us to confront the reality of our own mortality, not in countless years, but maybe…today.

    I’m 43, and I think I confronted my mortality as a child. i never felt I was going to last, somehow.

    Anyway, your description of your shunt and your questions were painful to read but also rang true for me in certain ways. I have never had a TBI and the thought terrifies me. I do have cadaver bone and a big plate and screws in my spine, which is pretty minor in the grand scheme, but the thought that someone else’s bone is in my body is infinitely creepy, that I’ve been taken apart and put back together a bit, and I’ll never be the same. I’ll never be whole the way I was. My case is so small comparatively, but like you said, it’s always there, this sort of disturbing truth about the way things are and will be now.

    Sending hugs your way. You are a survivor, my dear, you are the best case scenario. The fighter, the one who looked that fucking TBI in the face and said, no. Luck, fate, whatever. You won.

  • http://midlifebloggers.com byjane

    Steph,
    You got it–”odd” does describe it, although only if the other person (you) knows what that kind of odd means.

    I should have known I could get all the skinny from you. And, yes, I am glad I have you back there…wanna feel my shunt????

  • http://www.deathchic.com Steph

    I’m still amazed at the story you told me about the treatment technique and how just by what sounded like dumb luck you had a doctor who tried a different treatment than was being practiced in most of America. I keep thinking that you would feel lucky to be alive but I suppose there would always be that “what if” thought looming, or if not the “what if” the presence of the shunt to remind you of how close you came and the presence of the fact of that event in your everyday existence. How odd that must be. I mean really.

    P.S. – Unless your family specifically requests, no embalmer is going to remove the shunt. If you go with a traditional Jewish burial then you wouldn’t be embalmed anyway and if you are cremated the shunt and tubing will simply be consumed by the flame – they run extremely hot for several hours. Aren’t you glad you have me here now?

  • http://midlifebloggers.com byjane

    starrlife: Thanks for your comment and understanding. I’m well–or maybe just sorta–aware that the aneurysm is in some ways always with me even though I don’t often talk about it. But when something triggers it, as you say, the whole thing comes washing back. People say (and have said since I was lying in that hospital bed), “oh you should write about it.” I’m not sure why I don’t or haven’t or do so only in little bursts.

  • http://starrlife.wordpress.com starrlife

    Goodness Jane- I had no idea! What a difficult thing to go through. The Natasha R. thing has lingered with me too. Such a compelling story to be beautiful,fall,walk away unscathed and then collapse. That must be very strange to feel- thanks so much for sharing something so personal. You seem to have recompensated well and gotten some excellent treatment. TBI is a real gray area in medicine and rehab in my world. I know what you mean about mortality. I never even thought about dying as a reality until I had a child at 42. I have a friend who had a bad concussion which everyone seems to take as no big deal but her brain was well scrambled for many months and even now she can experience loss in memory and mood. Hugs- it must be very triggering for you.

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