Urgent Advice needed - 7.2mm brain aneurysm

[Namechangehitting]

Someone I know went to hospital after banging his head. They did a scan and turns out he had a 6.3mm brain aneurysm. Docs tried to refer him to Kings who are the specialists, they wouldn’t take him and do anything for 5 days as he had a head injury. Got discharged with pain killers and a plan to return today to be transferred to Kings for surgery tomorrow.

That night his headache got worse and his blood pressure was through the roof, 999 sent an ambulance and he was eventually admitted to a ward the next day, they managed to get his blood pressure under control. Kings still refused to take him, and said even if they went there themselves they wouldn’t deal with it as an emergency. The hospital were then going to do a lumbar puncture to check whether it was leaking but I’m not sure why they didn’t do that.

He had another scan on Friday and they’ve not seen a consultant since to get any feedback.

The a&e consultant is unofficially trying to help them (even though he shouldn’t be as he is now admitted) as he thinks Kings should have taken him days ago. He has told them it has grown to 7.3mm. He has been suffering with an earache all day and now blood pressure is high again.

They’ve asked for another MRI and CT scan today to see what’s currently going on, they’ve asked for the neurosurgical team to come and review him.

Is there anything else we can do to get Kings to accept him and deal with this before it ruptures?? Any advice at all??

Or even someone just tell me that we are completely overreacting and to calm down and be patient, the docs know what they’re doing???

the management isn't always to jump in and do a procedure immediately - needs an awful lot more information to know what the right answer is though. This is really bread-and-butter medics/neuro stuff - KCH will be giving very sensible advice even if the plan isn't to transfer immediately.

It depends on whether or not the aneurysm has ruptured . The head injury and aneurysm are separate issues He will be treated electively for the aneurysm if it’s not rupruted , and within 48 hours for a ruptured bleeding one . Kings are a great centre - If they are acting on full information from his current hospital.

Does this mean from the timeline that the planned surgery is today? Also it sounds as though he hit his head and they happened to find the aneurysm as a result of this and the cause wasn’t him hitting his head? From experience, he would know if it had ruptured . The pain in his head would be off the scale, feeling like his head would explode with pressure, vomiting, temporary vision loss, loss of balance amongst other things. I would guess they are viewing it as surgery on an unruptured aneurysm but I do understand how worrying it is for him.

What makes you think it is going to rupture? Have King's given any advice about this? It sounds like they are following some kind of best practice about not operating shortly after a head injury. Not sure why you would want them to go against their own advice. It sounds like everyone is panicking without maybe fully understanding the situation? Can you speak with someone at Pals to help you get some more information? What does the a&e consultant say about why his blood pressure is rising?