CBS News New York's Jennifer Bisram shares her life-or-death brain aneurysm scare
When it comes to medical reporting, some stories hit very close to home. This is the case with our friend and colleague, Jennifer Bisram.
Bisram is a mother, daughter, wife, and an award-winning journalist. Now, she's telling her own story about a life-or-death health scare.
She was off the air for several weeks this past spring, dealing with a serious health issue that started with headaches.
"I remember it was, like, to the left, the side [of my head] here. And it was just like the same place, and it just wouldn't go away," Bisram told CBS News New York's Cindy Hsu. "My husband always equates it to you're not sleeping enough and you're not hydrating enough, which, to be fair, is probably true most of the time."
Bisram said the headaches persisted and lasted for months, so she pushed for an MRI. She was shocked to learn she had a brain aneurysm, which is when a blood vessel in the brain swells, developing a bulging or balloon-like shape.
"I felt like I was a walking time bomb," she said.
Neurointerventionalist Dr. Charlotte Chung said Bisram's aneursym was "a little bit more dangerous than many other ones."
"I was so scared that I wrote out my wishes," Bisram said. "Just in case I didn't come back home."
Chung performed a procedure called a flow diversion, redirecting the blood in Bisram's brain using a mesh tube or stent that was inserted in a vein through her wrist.
Thankfully, the surgery was a success.
"Once we put the stent in, we're gonna give it half a year, one year for it to disappear," Chung said.
After several days in the hospital and rest at home, Bisram was ready to get back to her passion – sharing stories, including her own.
"I feel like I would be doing an injustice if I didn't tell my story," she said. "I felt like I had to come back and prove something to people, that you will be OK, too ... I think part of me wanted to prove it to myself."
She has been posting updates on social media and volunteered at the annual Brain Aneurysm Foundation Long Island Run/Walk.
"I was like, yes, sign me up. [They asked me] do you want to speak? Yes, sign me up," Bisram said.
She added, "I love life and I feel like there's so much to live, and I wanna make sure that I live it out until that day."
In the United States, nearly 1 in 50 people live with an unruptured brain aneurysm with no symptoms at all. Annually, about 30,000 people will suffer from a brain aneurysm that ruptures, and half of them will die.
