Subarachnoid haemorrhage - Heather's story 

  • Heather's story

'After my brain injury, there were suddenly men everywhere who I fancied' 

Personality change: Heather's story

Heather had a brain haemorrhage in 2005, which led to a personality change. Find out how she and her family cope with the changes.

Heather had a brain haemorrhage in 2005, which led to a personality change. Heather and her husband Andrew describe how they cope with the changes.

For more real stories on brain injury, visit Headway: my story

Last reviewed: 13/04/2012

Next review due: 13/04/2014

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khough said on 12 September 2011

My husband had a subarachnoid brain haemorrhage caused by a berry aneurysm in 1985 when he was 37. Since then he has suffered from fatigue which has worsened over time rather than improved. He is now 63 and had to semi retire at 59 and then retire completely over a year ago as he cannot get through a whole day without resting. He still has what he describes as 'good and bad' days and also still has sleep problems, difficulty finding the right words for even familiar things, can drag his left leg when tired and can become easily frustrated - although he has had help to control the angry outbursts. I wonder if anyone out there has - or knows someone who has- similar problems even after 26 years? We are so grateful that he survived against the odds so do all we can to encourage and help him. There was very little help/information given to us at the time so had to cope with each thing as it came along as best we could. Any information would be gratefully received. My thoughts and prayers go to all sufferers and their family and friends.

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Tracy Watling said on 24 July 2009

Thanks for that Jan, it has been 3 months since it all started, 3 wks after she had the aneurysms, she was released from hospital but then the next day she suffered a massive stroke which has back tracked everything, her speech is very poor and her right side was all affected she can walk but has a limp which we have been that this will be there for the rest of her life and her arm is in very progress and so is her speech, we have been told that she may never be able to talk properly again, which I have accepted cause if she does get more improvement it is a bonus. She is not the same person after the stroke, she can be very picky at things which she was not before the stroke, and her personality has changed which I know can change after speaking to a couple of work colleagues who have had relatives who have gone through this. I am still struggling to cope and accepting this as she is so young.

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EmilyBragg said on 29 June 2009

Im 15 years old. On the 9th of may 2009 i suffered a subarachnoid haemorrhage. I was out running with my dad and had this indiscribable pain in my head. I soon began to loose conciousness. I was taken to hospital and monitored, they gave me a scan and soon realised what the problem was. I was ventilated and transferred to a specialist hospital. I was given an angiagram 2 days later and operated on the day after to have an aneurysm clipped. I remained in ICU for 9 days and was then transferred to a childrens hospital. I was then in there for 2 weeks. I have made a good recovery. At the moment i am off school as i still get very tired and sometimes confused.

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User273887 said on 12 June 2009

Tracy - your mum will improve, but it will take time. The advice I received at the hospital was "one day at a time". I made a list of things I could not do on one side of a sheet of paper and bit by bit ticked them off when I achieved my goals. It took a while, but it was good to see progress written down. There are still things I cannot do, but I have accepted this as they are minor in comparison to how I was. I still have "issues", but am so glad I had the support of my family through a very dark period.

I had my SAH in 2001when I was 45. Massive headache, then I collapsed, went very hot all over and briefly lost consciousness and had a fit.. My husband had me rushed to hospital where the SAH was diagnosed. No beds at my local hospital, so was rushed to Oxford where after being stabilised, underwent the "coiling" process. While in hospital suffered from constant headaches and was paranoid there were people out to get me. Was released 11 days after to the care of a consultant who never showed up, so my husband had to give me my medication every four hours. I had four months off work, but returned part time to start with, then back to full time.

Since the SAH I have trouble concentrating and occasionally get blurred vision and extreme tiredness and depression. I also seem to have lost my ability to be sensible and stupidly I still smoke. If I try to give up, I become obsessed with not being able to have a cigarette and become totally miserable and depressed. I know I should not be smoking, and believe me I have tried and tried, but I fail every time and cannot shake off the depression.

You would have thought that having the SAH would have been enough to scare me into stopping, but it seems to have made me worse.

I need help and advice on this and some good moral support and rational thinking.

Jan

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Tracy Watling said on 27 May 2009

My mother suffered a subarachnoid haemorrhage she has 4 aneuryms, one massive was bleeding but she also had another one beside it so they clipped both of them, the other 2 are at the back of her head, she lost some speech but gradually come back. She was released from hospital after 2-3 weeks and the next day she was back in hospital with a full blown stroke, her speech has been severly affected, we are not sure whether she will regain this back as it is nearly 2 wks now, but they are going to give her intense therapy to teach her ways of communicating, she has some movement back in arm and her leg is nearly there, but this is going to be a very long process. My mother is only 54 years of age and has never had no illness at all, so this has really come as a shock to us and finding very hard to handle that this may be the way she is going to be, I am not putting hopes up, anything is a bonus if anything does regain back

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