“In the middle of the night one night I heard Reya scream,” recalled Reya Menghrajani’s mom, Aarti.
When Aarti got to Reya’s room, she saw her daughter was throwing up and her body became stiff. An emergency head CT at another hospital revealed intracranial hemorrhaging from an aneurysm rupture in her brain. She was transferred to CHoR to get the care she needed.
During an angiogram and coiling procedure – placing small metal coils in an aneurysm to stop blood flow into the aneurysm and reduce the risk of re-bleeding – our team discovered that Reya was born with an arteriovenous malformation in her brain.
“An arteriovenous malformation, or AVM, is a collection of abnormal blood vessels that can be found in just about any part of the body,” explained Dr. Jesse Bain, critical care physician who cared for Reya in the PICU. “In the setting of having it inside the brain, it becomes very tenuous.”
Brain AVMs in particular have a tendency to bleed, which can be dangerous if not removed. Several months after Reya’s aneurysm rupture, Dr. Gary Tye performed a craniotomy, removing part of her skull to access her brain and take out the AVM. Reya’s parents, understandably concerned, were full of questions about what their daughter’s future would hold. Dr. Bain reassured them that she wouldn’t just walk again, but run, laugh and play too. After a month at CHoR, that’s exactly what she did.
“When Reya first presented, she had a horrible headache and seizures. She needed urgent imaging to diagnose that she had a large bleed. But this was just the beginning,” said Reya’s neurologist, Dr. Ewa Way. “Treating a child with an AVM rupture takes a multidisciplinary team. Reya needed to be monitored very closely with terrific care in the PICU due to the blood in her brain, and neurosurgery was needed to stabilize her bleeding and then find a time when it was safe to open up her skull and treat the AVM. Neurology monitored for more seizures and helped with the family's understanding of what the blood was doing and could do in her brain. Reya's family always had substantial and paramount questions which we did our best to answer every day based on the information we had. We did it together, with all the teams discussing and helping to give Reya's family some understanding. Reya's family support and multidisciplinary care here at CHoR gave her the best possible prognosis.”
Today, Reya is back to her old self – healthy and happy.
“Just go straight to CHoR,” said Aarti. “From our experience we know that Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU is by far the best hospital for children. They’ve given me my world back.”
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