My brother sent me a message yesterday asking my advice , we're a close family and so this isn't unusual.
This is the background.
He's 50. Very fit , always has been. 10 years ago he collapsed playing 5 a side football. Was rushed to hospital with a brain aneurysm. At the time the surgeon told us how lucky he was , 2 out of 3 patients die before even reaching hospital. The ward was full of poor souls who had similar problems and were much more badly affected than my brother.
It took him a year to recover. They put a stent in and gradually he has returned to full health with relatively little side effects.
His recent check up showed there was some small leakage so they ran the necessary tests.
The outcome is this , he can just leave it as its not life threatening at the moment and they have no reason to believe it would change BUT if it did , he would die. The consultant was quite blunt about it.
OR they can operate and change the stent which would solve the problem, probably indefinitely but he would increase his risk of a stroke on the table from 5% as was the last operation to 10%.
He asked my opinion on his choices. I said if it was me I'd take the op because at least he has a high chance of no stroke and full recovery as opposed to being dead. Which is pretty damn final.
I spent some time last night in the middle of the night worrying that I had given him the wrong advice ( which of course he may not take!).
I wondered what choice you would make or what advice you would have given if any?
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