Stacey Doranski was cleaning out her car at a gas station on Christmas Eve last year, making room to bring presents home to her 4-year-old son, and installing a new car seat. She was pregnant, due to give birth in just a few weeks and wanted everything to be in place for the arrival of her baby girl.
She was hoping to get home to her family after the errand, but instead, everything faded to black.
The next thing she remembered was waking up in an ambulance, disoriented and scared — screaming out to the EMTs that she was pregnant, feeling nothing other than the impulse to protect her baby and an indescribable pressure building in her head.
Sixteen days in the hospital and three brain surgeries later, Stacey found herself with a newborn she didn’t remember delivering.
Then, just four months later, she was back at the hospital watching her infant go through the same medical emergency she had just survived.
Brain surgery and emergency delivery
The pressure Stacey felt in her head was a ruptured aneurysm that, had it not been for the quick actions of a watchful gas station attendant and her Rush medical team, she may not have survived. When Stacey got to Rush, neurosurgeon Webster Crowley, MD, took on her case.
Crowley coordinated with obstetric and anesthesia specialists to decide how to address the aneurysm before delivering the baby. They worried an emergency delivery in her current state could rupture the aneurysm, which would put both Stacey and her baby at even greater risk.
“That night, we had nearly twice as many team members on hand than we normally do, including a fetal monitoring specialist who sat directly next to Stacey for the duration of the surgery,” Crowley said. “We treat ruptured aneurysms all the time, but this time, it was two lives at stake instead of one.”
Crowley and the team successfully treated the aneurysm endovascularly, through a small needle puncture on Stacey’s wrist, clearing the way to deliver the baby.
Stacey’s daughter, Piper, was safely delivered the following day, on Christmas. Ahead of the emergency C-section, Crowley placed a drain in Stacey’s skull to ensure the pressure on her brain wouldn’t be elevated for the procedure.
Helping put the pieces together
Piper was cleared to go home with her dad a day before Stacey, who, after more than two weeks in the hospital, was back home with a newborn to care for and a new diagnosis she would have to monitor the rest of her life.
“I was not only still recovering from my own brain surgery, but I was also adapting to being a new mom again and coming home to my son and trying to give him all the time that he needed,” Stacey said. “The transition from something so traumatic was not easy.”
She had a follow-up appointment scheduled for two weeks after she was discharged. This appointment is where Stacey was finally able to start processing exactly what had happened during her hospital stay.
She spoke with Carrie Picchietti, NP, who specializes in vascular neurosurgery cases like Stacey’s. Picchietti helped Stacey walk through what had happened in the hospital — every diagnosis, every procedure, every medical decision.
“Patients are sedated for a lot of their emergency care. While we constantly communicate with family, the patient can sometimes feel overwhelmed and confused when they come out of the worst of it,” Picchietti said. “Many patients have a ‘lightbulb’ moment in our post-hospital appointments and can make more sense of what they survived. We give them the space to process that they went through something traumatic, and we tell them that it’s OK if things don’t feel normal right away.”
Stacey and Piper’s return to Rush
As Stacey was adapting to this new reality and taking care of her children, everything changed once again. In the months after coming home, Piper seemed fine. Then, one day in May, Piper started uncontrollably screaming and sweating, eventually rolling her eyes back and going limp. Terrified, Stacey immediately called an ambulance. They were taken to a nearby hospital, which discovered Piper had a brain bleed. The hospital transferred them to Rush to again get lifesaving care.
This time, it was Rush neurosurgeon Stephan Munich, MD, who got the call. Upon arrival, Munich ran more tests on Piper and discovered a possible abnormality in the blood vessels toward the back of her brain which had ruptured and was putting pressure on her brainstem.
In the operating room, Munich put in a drain to get rid of some of the spinal fluid building up and alleviate pressure on her brain. He then did a craniotomy, where he removed a thumb-sized piece of bone from the back of Piper’s skull to allow her brain to swell safely.
As they were addressing Piper’s immediate neurological needs, Munich was also keeping an eye on a possible vascular lesion. The results of one of Piper’s ultrasounds concerned him, which prompted further testing.
“The later test confirmed that the bleeding we saw on the ultrasound was caused by a vascular lesion and its associated aneurysm,” Munich said. “With patients like Piper, these are especially concerning. Babies can’t afford to lose a lot of blood, because they don’t have a lot of blood to begin with.”
Like Crowley had done for Stacey just months earlier, Munich treated Piper’s aneurysm with care. The residual blood that had built up in the area slowly resolved itself over time under close monitoring from Munich’s team — which included Crowley, scrubbing in as an assistant to Munich — helping Piper avoid another procedure. Crowley was also able to scrub in for Piper’s procedure.
Piper recovered, and after close monitoring, she was cleared to return home with Stacey, who was now managing her daughter’s new neurologic condition in addition to her own.
Adjusting to a new reality
Stacey and Piper now both see Picchietti for occasional follow-ups and will get yearly scans to monitor their aneurysms. Stacey also reaches out to Picchietti with any immediate concerns about Piper.
Recently, Stacey noticed Piper was being fussier than usual and was worried she might be having another medical emergency. But Picchietti was able to rule that out, instead finding that Piper was just teething, right on schedule.
“I am truly blessed to still be alive, and for my daughter to still be alive, as well,” Stacey said. “Being able to experience life as a family of four is not something I take for granted, and I greatly appreciate what Rush has done for all of us.”
