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“Eat, sleep, chill, repeat” – while every teenager was doing something similar to that in the prime of their teenage – my agenda was slightly different. It was “eat, sleep, therapy, repeat”. My stable, almost monotonous, routine had been set and was going quite smoothly (with the seizure-al exceptions), only to be interrupted not once, but a lot more times in the month of December. Only this time it wasn’t interrupted due to the November-reasons (check previous log), it was something on a whole new level which I had never experienced before. The doctors had already been in discussion with my parents regarding a few, not just one, surgeries that might help in my recovery. They were contemplating over the V.P. Shunt as a plausible permanent solution towards the CSF accumulation issue that was hampering my recovery progress. During the months long discussion, the decision had been arrived at that we would have to take care of other issues first before tackling this one. I don’t think I have written this before but the reason for my brain hemorrhage was an AVM, which stands for Arteriovenous Malformation. What is that, you ask? Normally, Arteries carry blood containing oxygen from the heart to the brain, and Veins carry deoxygenated blood with away from the brain and back to the heart. When an arteriovenous malformation (AVM) occurs, a tangle of blood vessels in the brain or on its surface bypasses normal brain tissue and directly diverts blood from the arteries to the veins (source: www.strokeassociation.org). This whole AVM business is a really weird thing to deal with. Why? Well, 1) It has no explicit symptoms whatsoever, And 2) It can burst for the silliest of reasons and without warnings. That’s why I like to call it a ticking time bomb (but without a dial that shows the time). The tests showed that there was one large AVM in my brain behind my right eye. It had two ends – one deep-rooted and the other superficial. According to the doctors, the AVM’s had to be dealt with first so as to minimalize the risk of a re-bleed (a re-bleed would be yet another brain hemorrhage). The chosen procedure for dealing with my AVM was embolization. An embolization was basically like clogging a pipe, they would block the blood vessel so there wouldn’t be any blood flowing through the AVM. That way, even if the AVM burst, there wouldn’t be a bleed (no blood to come out). The embolization was carried out on the first Monday of December. We thought that the AVM could be embolized in one go itself but it was after the procedure on the first Monday of December that the doctor informed us that it would require 3 sittings in total. No doubt it knocked me out of therapy for a few days, but like they say, it was for the greater good (my long-term recovery) and let’s not forget there was a wee bit of pain that accompanies every “cut-up” of your body. This was just the first major step towards bouncing back stronger and doing things that I could have never dreamt of doing before (and after) my hemorrhage. Question was, how many more major steps would I need to make some real progress and finally be able to get out of the hospital? Is this getting too serious? Well, I promise you, will be back to my witty self in next log guys 😉.