Headache relief no simple matter

A happy Robyn Harrison with her husband Jason at a wedding, just months after her surgery. Robyn no longer suffers frequent, excruciating headaches.

In May 2006, while returning from a business trip Robyn Harrison was hit with a severe headache followed by nausea and vomiting. She didn’t know what was happening.

After a couple of days with these persistent symptoms, Robyn went to see her family doctor, who ordered a CAT scan.

She had an AVM or Arteriovenous Malformation, a tangle of malformed blood vessels in her brain, a congenital disorder of the blood vessels of the brain that doctors believe is formed before birth.  It affects less than one percent of the population and only 12 percent of those ever develop symptoms.

AVMs can cause severe headaches, bleeding, seizures, and even stroke.

There are therapeutic ways to treat or shrink AVMs, or they can simply be monitored however, only brain surgery offers a permanent solution. Once AVM is removed, it can’t grow back. Like any serious surgery, there are risks including the loss of peripheral vision, bleeding that could lead to stroke, seizure, brain swelling, and in rare cases, even death.  Still, Robyn opted for the permanent solution to her severe headaches and nausea.
 
In July, Robyn underwent 10 hours of surgery at London Health Sciences Centre, by a team led by neurosurgeon Dr. Stephen Lownie, who is also Co-chair of Clinical Neurological Sciences at the hospital. Everything was going well until one hour after entering recovery when her pupil dilated, indicating a hemorrhagic stroke resulting in bleeding and pressure in the brain, one of the risks with this type of surgery. It took three more hours of surgery to stop the bleeding.

Robyn’s mother remembers the long hours in the waiting room; from the time it was packed in the morning to about 6 p.m. when it was fairly empty. Then Dr. Lownie came in to give them the news that Robyn was talking and squeezing his hand.

There was a period of recovery and rehabilitation because of the bleeding after the initial operation. After almost two weeks of recovery in hospital and another two weeks of inpatient therapy Robyn progressed quickly to outpatient therapy closer to home.  Best of all, the frequent headaches were gone. Today she is back at work with RIM in Kitchener-Waterloo.

“Before I had the surgery I had severe headaches for so long,” says Robyn. “It gave me my life back.”

When asked about her hospital experience, Robyn adds one last thing, “The care at London Health Sciences Centre was amazing.”

Clinical Neurological Sciences at LHSC is in the process of introducing an angiography machine into the operating room, a resource that has not been available in operating rooms in the past. This device allows physicians to look at blood vessels in the brain, where strokes can occur in minutes.  Robyn’s story was shared this past summer with donors at The Great Drake, an annual fundraising golf tournament supporting Clinical Neurological Sciences at London Health Sciences Centre. This year’s tourney raised more than $75,000 for the Angiography Suite.