Gammaknife in 3 days

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Hi all,
I’m Edoardo, nice to meet you

While I don’t have any particular question beside that
if you like, you can share your experience with Gamma Knife here or give me some advice with life
I would like to condivide my experience, because reading your stories is helping me go throught these “particular” days.
I wouldn’t say necessary hard or heavy days: it can be, but probably it’s not a death sentence, but it is something that make us wonder and reflect a lot,
and each of our stories has a personal message to be disclosed.

I’m 32 years old male and, me too, I have been called to face this battle.
My avm is in thalamus, is <=1 cm of diameter and, i think it gave me zero noticiable symptoms in my life.
It has been an incidental finding during an MRI two years ago, first diagnosed as a probable DVA (development venous anomaly),
then, one year and half later, labeled as supicious AVM after a more precise exam with MRI Tesla machine.
Then one month ago the final diagnosis through agiography.
Fun fact in the past I did agonistic boxing and powerlifting, so I recived lot of blows and pressure spikes in my head, but my small AVM remained intanct, no sign of past bleeds.
I call myself lucky, or maybe in these years shw wasn’t allready with me: one thing I understood is that little we know about these malformations.

Howether,
Due to critical position and inacessibilty of my malformation with Niguarda equipe, in Milan, Italy (I’m from Genoa so a few kilometers further south, right on the shores of the Italian Nordic sea), we decided to cure and to go for GammaKnife.

This adventure
is not the only recent novelty in my life: me and my partner are expecting two babies. It is early to say that for sure because it is only the 7th week plus we had assisted reproduction (we had tried for more than one year) but this is a great news that gives us hope. In the deep on my consciousness I’m excited and I will to see them both, but
the dark side of this story is that now I’m really focused on myself, and my fiance seems to don’t understand my worries and we do nothing but argue,
this really makes me reflect on how much she cares about me.
If i was her I would be only supportive and comprensive, In this delicate period, I don’t think she is into my emotions, and that should reflect our future.
If I look inside me I’m a tangle of emotions so I can’t judge if it is time for us to break or what else.

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Hi Edoardo, it is great you found us, too bad for having a reason to look! I had gamma knife in 2016 on a left temporal AVM, and in 2019 received the news it had been obliterated. I had a good experience with gamma overall, the staff was incredible.

Congrats on the upcoming parenthood, and sorry it sounds like there are some emotions at play as well. I am by no means an expert but I found in my case a couple things were involved. One I was scared, and maybe wasn’t so good at managing that, and the fact that I wasn’t good at expressing how I felt and my frustration showed up in negative ways. When I realized that no one in my family could clearly understand what I was feeling, it made it easier for me to understand that they didn’t know, and I was poor at talking about it.

I found this group so helpful, particularly in the early days of trying to figure out what was going on. I’m certainly the last guy to give relationship advice, but you have a lot going on, and your partner does as well. Consider that, and know tough times often build strength. Take Care, John

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Hi John,
Greatful to hear your wellcome.
The fact that you were able to treat your AVM is a source of hope for me.

I’m too not that good in managing this kind of stress, the possile rupture and the uncertainty of obliteration simply are bugging me.
But I’m moving on with life, working is a huge help and can get me thorught the day, I read and study when I can.
I have shared multiple time my discomfort emotions, but I don’t get much from her, she is so focused on small ordinary things that she can still make argues on why I left a glass of water on the table (I’m really active in household chores, bytheway) while I have other thouhghts in my mind.
I would try to ease her pain not to add discontent in her mind every single day.
I think this is really brutal, didn’t expect from her and I’m really resentful.
We are having a first session with a couples therapist today for another pre-existing problem,
I’ll talk about this too.

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Ciao Edoardo!

I think these things are tough on us but they are just as tough on those around us. She is probably just as worried about how you are as you, yourself. Having a family on the way and to find your partner facing a very uncertain future is going to put her off balance just as much as you are off balance, and people express these things in different ways.

I would like to hope that as you go through your consultations, and spend time here understanding other’s experiences, you’ll rationalise it better in your mind and I hope you’ll be able to help her to rationalise as well. I’m saying this from my own experience of having a diagnosis and pretty seriously panicking about it all. It is very difficult.

I don’t think she means ill at all by her actions: she is simply stressed and it is coming out in this way. When we are less stressed, we are better able to control how we behave. If we get too stressed, that ability to control how it comes out is lost: there is just too much going on at once and it just kind of bursts out how it bursts out. I think it is just an indication of how difficult she is finding it. Hang in there, look after her (after all, you could do with a distraction from thinking about this too much?!) and I’m sure you’ll all four get through this challenge.

Big hug to both of you from me!

Richard

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Ciao Riccardo!

I like your interpretation of her behaviour, I’ll try to adopt this view and discuss with her.
It is true that everyone has his own mode to cope with stressful situations and not understanding sometimes doesn’t mean that the other person is that bad (or disconnected in my case) but maybe that he isn’t responding in the configuration desired by you.

Thinking a second time about your phrases and contextualizing them in our relation, I believe that this could be only a partial justification.
We are mature, she is 38 and a really cleaver woman, I can’t imagine she can’t do a step further and see that her behaviour is causing harm in allready damaged person.
I will not call her egoist because, after talking with you, I have a good hope that she is moved by a sincere altruistic fear,
but not enough altruistic or in love with me to activly trying to control her impulses.

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Hey, have a good day today!

The frame is uncomfortable but other than that, you shouldn’t feel any different by the end of the day than at the start. It is, however, the first step.

Patience is required in the meanwhile and good fortune that the treatment does what we hope it will do.

Very best wishes,

Richard

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Hi Edoardo!
I’m from Greece so I guess we are some kind of neighbours!
As you describe your situation,been in both places myself (pregnant and AVM survivor) ,I wanted to tell you that the hormones and pregnancy make everything stressful and it’s a hard time for her too…
Wishing you the best with your treatment and congratulations for your babies!

Despina

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Hi Despina!
Wow Greek is amazing, I will visit one day for sure.
My dad lived lived in Athens for a period as a child and used to go fishing with a local man after school. I have always envied him for that.
Regarding my relation,
She even is taking hormones because of the assisted reproduction process. Sometimes she can became sweet, but for now, she can’t meet my few needs.
Sadly she lost one of the two baby,
But we will be togher and face it all

Best regards

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