Aneurysm: Doctors misdiagnosed my ruptured brain aneurysm at 37 — the key wa.rning sign they overlooked

When pain turns deadly

A day and a half after the pain first struck, Brothers was lying awake in bed, tormented by a relentless headache and racing thoughts.

“I don’t know if this is part of being a woman and what we deal with with our bodies, but I wondered, ‘Am I blowing this out of proportion? Am I crazy?’” she recalled.

By 1:45 a.m., she’d had enough. Weak, dehydrated and desperate, she called another Uber — this time to the ER at Mount Sinai Morningside.

At the walk-in clinic, the doctors thought Brothers had a migraine and did not run any tests.
Julie Brothers

She sat in the backseat as the driver blasted club music, the smell of his air freshener making her queasy as she fought to keep from vomiting all over the car.

When she staggered through the hospital doors and described her symptoms, the ER staff sprang into immediate action. They quickly checked her vitals, administered fluids and pain medication through an IV and rushed her in for a brain scan.

The diagnosis was terrifying: a ruptured aneurysm, roughly the size of a marble, had been leaking blood into the space around her brain. It was sitting at the base of her skull, lodged in the wall of her posterior communicating artery.

A silent killer

A brain aneurysm is a weakened, bulging area in a brain artery. If it ruptures, blood leaks into the space between the brain and skull, causing a life-threatening type of stroke known as a subarachnoid hemorrhage, according to the BAF.

An estimated 6.8 million Americans — about 1 in 50 — are living with an unruptured brain aneurysm.

Every year, 30,000 of those ticking time bombs explode, or one every 18 minutes. Half of those patients die within three months. Among survivors, two-thirds are left with permanent brain damage, per the BAF.

Brain aneurysms often develop silently — with many patients unaware they have one.
Julie Brothers

“It’s very important to get assessed and treated quickly,” Dr. Christopher Kellner, a cerebrovascular neurosurgeon and director of Mount Sinai’s Intracerebral Hemorrhage program, told The Post.