I was in my mid-thirties, a non-smoker, non-drinker, never did drugs - healthy by every measure I trusted. I had no family history of AVMs, no persistent headaches, nothing to warn me of what was coming. I go to gym 3-4 days a week. I believed my body was reliable, steady. Then, one ordinary night, everything changed.
Dinner was over, and I had just gone to bed. The moment I lay down, a stabbing pain exploded on the right side of my head - sudden, sharp, and violent, like being pierced by a needle. Almost immediately, my left lip went numb. When I tried to speak, the words came out broken, slurred, unfamiliar.
I told myself it was something simple, food poisoning maybe, something temporary. But when I reached for water and couldn’t swallow, panic took over.
The emergency room was only five minutes away, and that small mercy probably saved me. I rushed there, barely aware of anything but the pounding fear in my chest. The doctors moved fast, checking for stroke symptoms and ordering a CT scan. When they came back, their faces told me the truth before their words did.
I had bleeding in my brain.
I spent the next four days in the ICU, drifting between machines, monitors, and the quiet sound of people whispering outside my room. An MRI and angiogram confirmed the diagnosis: an arteriovenous malformation (AVM) in my right posterior frontal lobe. Once I stabilized, I was discharged, but I left the hospital changed. I was told not to drive, not to lift more than five pounds, not to run, and not to start any new activities until surgery.
My left side was weak, my face drooped, and my arm had lost nearly forty percent of its strength. For someone who’d always been fiercely independent, that loss hit hard. I cried, not from physical pain, but from the sudden realization that I couldn’t do even the simplest things on my own.
Recovery was humbling. For nearly three weeks, I could only drink water by the tablespoon. Anything more made me choke. I lived on thickened liquids, always needing someone nearby in case my body failed me again. My left hand felt foreign, disconnected from the brain that once guided it effortlessly. I couldn’t use my phone or type for a month. Speaking was no easier; each word was a challenge. I couldn’t speak for more than five minutes without my brain fogging. I couldn’t walk and talk at the same time.
Slowly, over forty-five days, my voice and strength began to return. But my facial weakness stayed, a quiet reminder that healing doesn’t happen all at once. Somewhere along the way, something strange changed in me emotionally. I lost the ability to really show anger. I can feel upset or frustrated inside, but on the outside my face just smiles, almost automatically, even when I don’t mean to. My wife mentioned that its a good problem to have 
. I also became extremely sensitive to sound; ordinary noises around me started to irritate me far more than they ever did before.
When I was well enough, I consulted a neurosurgeon in Dallas who recommended Gamma Knife treatment. Still unsure, I sought a second opinion from Barrow Neurological Institute. Dr. Michael Lawton reviewed my scans and told me he could remove the AVM through surgical resection.
I didn’t stop there; I shared my imaging with several specialists. Each one gave me the same answer: resection, not Gamma Knife - the risk of rebleeding in my case was too high (2-8%) and would add up over the years.
About one hundred days after that terrifying night, with my family’s support, I made my decision. I would undergo a craniotomy at Barrow in Phoenix. The AVM sat near my motor cortex, and my greatest fear wasn’t the surgery; it was waking up unable to move my arm or losing function forever.
To face that fear, I prepared obsessively. I wrote down about fifty questions and asked every one of them to Dr. Lawton’s team. Their patience and confidence gave me the reassurance I needed.
The pre-op imaging and blood work moved quickly, and the surgery happened in the next few days. When I woke up, all I could do was wait. This time, the wait ended with hope. The follow-up CT scan and angiogram showed no residual AVM. It was gone.
It’s been a week since surgery. My head still aches, and I’m sticking to soft foods by choice, but healing feels different now: possible, steady. I’m still here. And I’m free of the AVM.
If there’s one thing I’d tell anyone facing a similar fight, it’s this: choose a surgeon who has done it many times and carries a quiet, genuine confidence. IMO, that matters more than anything. And prepare - have your medical power of attorney, directives, living will, and trust etc., in place. Life doesn’t always give warnings.
Above all, don’t lose faith. Don’t lose hope. Trust your doctors, and trust yourself. Sometimes, that trust is what carries you through the hardest moments.
I’m so predictable and possibly just repetitive!