Let’s go back in time a bit… from the fateful Sept. 23rd 2016, back to the Spring of 2016.
We took all our kids and their spouses to Costa Rica in the Spring (It was their Christmas gift... they were not sad about having to go). Brianne did a lot of adventuring with us from waterfall jumping (I have forever wished that I had gone with them on this one- next time), snorkeling, zip-lining through beautiful lush exotic forests, alligator watching, hiking, etc. and she stayed up with everyone really well but seemed extra tired.
We ended up with one large vehicle for all 10 of us, so with Brianne and *Lennerd taking the van to go scuba diving, we had to hitch a ride in the back of our landlords truck to the beach. Yes, that hot muggy day seemed a bit more exhilarating as we felt the wind in our hair trudging down the highway to the local beach. After trying some Ceviche sold by a local on the beach, which was probably not a great idea but it was sooooooo good. We then played at the beach for a while while running through the rolling waves.
As Brianne and *Lennerd drove to go scuba diving, she became quite ill and threw up all the way there in the car, which was quite a ways from our Villa. By the time she got there she had to sleep on the beach for a while and then... amazingly, she finally went out later in the day. She did a lot of sleeping in-between our drives between places, plus naps at the Villa. Now that we look back we see more clearly why she had some of the issues that she did during this exotic adventure.
Brianne complained off and on about not feeling well but didn’t give many details. She is a very calm and non-dramatic person. She never wanted to draw attention to herself by complaining but was always hyper concerned about others.
Here is a little 'taste of Brianne' before her surgery in the Summer of 2016. She loves her little guy so much!
That summer she confided in us about some really stressful things in their marriage and that they were talking about divorce. They started doing therapy to see what they could work out. I think all of these issues started overshadowing her time to look into a Dr. By the end of the summer she had mentioned that things had badly accelerated with her marriage. She talked with us about some of the issues going on.
However mid-summer was when she started complaining of severe headaches, much like a migraine. But so severe that she had to stop the car while driving a couple of times because she was worried about getting into an accident.
I went with Brianne,*Alex , and *Lennerd to the zoo in the late Summer. As we meandered through the zoo Brianne started getting so tired and needed help to walk. She tried to chit chat while holding onto my arm, she enjoyed how excited *Alex was by each animal adventure but she couldn't walk too fast, even holding on. She didn't want to talk too much about how she was feeling, she just pushed forward.
Later in August, she had a fainting/seizure episode, at least that is how her husband described it. We tried to get her to go see a specialist like a Neurologist but her husband, *Lennerd, insisted it was just from stress and refused. A couple of days later I went to her home to bring food and help do a little cleaning and as I talked to her, I told her that I wanted to take her in and see a doctor. She called *Lennerd and he couldn’t imagine why we needed to do that and said if she needed to go, he would take Brianne himself.
They went the next day to a regular Internal Medicine Dr. who suggested they give it a month and see if it was indeed just a migraine. We knew there had to be more to this and that Dr. was not a specialist. We talked with *Lennerd and Brianne extensively and even offered to pay for the specialist so that we could rule out anything major and start getting it addressed. But we could not move him to let us do that.
Before that month was over she had another seizure/fainting episode, we were not there because she was at home with *Lennerd and her little boy, *Alex, again. This one was big enough to be the jolt that finally got her an MRI.
And then she never went back to her home…. EVER!
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