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My sink schooled me on my stroke: How life teaches you lessons.

It’s a typical day. I’m getting ready for the day, washing my face and brushing my teeth when my sink fills up with backed-up water.

A VERY rough diagram of the progression of my stroke and AVM resolution. Excuse my handwriting. I have been using voice-to-text and dictation since the stroke! My handwriting has suffered because of this.
A VERY rough diagram of the progression of my stroke and AVM resolution. Excuse my handwriting. I have been using voice-to-text and dictation since the stroke! My handwriting has suffered because of this.

I let out a sigh of frustration and annoyance. A clogged sink is such a bothersome first-world problem. I was silently frustrated when I heard a loud gurgle, and the water went down the drain. Immediately the analogy clicked. I finally understood what my dad, the nerdy engineer, and my neurosurgeon were talking about in the ICU when they tried to explain why I had a second stroke. Poiseuille’s law and its constants and variables rushed to my mind. My father and doctor kept using the term “backpressure” to explain why I had bled out into my brain after receiving lifesaving radiosurgery. Let me try to make it more simple and easier to understand. Keyword: try. The water that was backed up in my sink is analogous to the blood in the vessel leading into my arteriovenous malformation (AVM) in my brain. My tumor of blood vessels (my AVM) had collapsed because of the radiosurgery I had that initiated the necrosis (cell death) of my AVM. So instead of blood flowing through the vessels that made up my AVM, the blood hit a wall. Since the blood had nowhere to go (the AVM was gone) and because I have high blood pressure, the vessel burst, creating a hemorrhagic stroke (a stroke where blood explodes from your blood…

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Signed Out: How my two strokes signed me out of my painstakingly planned medical education
Signed Out: How my two strokes signed me out of my painstakingly planned medical education

Published in Signed Out: How my two strokes signed me out of my painstakingly planned medical education

I had two strokes during medical school. Let’s talk about one and what I learned about life along the way.

AW
AW

Written by AW

I'm a 4th year medical student recovering from two strokes. I'm here navigating my new life & life in general. come follow me! join me! It'll be an adventure!

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