BRAIN ANEURYSMS ON HER MIND
Her Mother’s Loss — And Her Own Diagnosis — Led Her To Organize Walks
After her mother died suddenly from a ruptured aneurysm at 63, Diana Fritzson said she knew she had to get screened. When she learned that she, too, had an aneurysm, Fritzson went online looking for answers.
Then she organized Connecticut’s first awareness and fundraising walk, raising more than $20,000 to date.
“At first I questioned if this was a death sentence,” Fritzson said during a recent interview.
In August, Fritzson underwent surgery — a craniotomy, which means an incision into her skull from the center of her forehead to behind her ear — in order for her doctor to put a clip around an aneurysm located in the middle of her head.
Though she said she was anxious about the recovery, Fritzson, 51, of Marlborough, made a point to organize the third annual walk this past June in memory of her mother, Uliana Stocco, bringing friends, family and survivors to the MDC Reservoir off Farmington Avenue in West Hartford for the Brain Aneurysm Foundation, based in Hanover, Mass.
The Brain Aneurysm Foundation’s executive director, Christine Buckley, said Fritzson’s grassroots effort is forming the foundation’s first support group in Connecticut.
“We didn’t have a real stronghold or any person who has risen to the task [in Connecticut]. I feel, with Diana’s help and now with her doctor at UConn, I think that they will have a larger role in getting the support group going,” Buckley said. “Without people like her, the foundation wouldn’t continue to exist.”
Fritzson lost her mother and grandmother from brain aneurysm ruptures and after her mother died, her doctor suggested she get a screening, since aneurysms are hereditary. Fritzson said it was her mother’s sudden death that made her think of her children, and that it was necessary for her to get scans regularly.
Though a first test came back clean, a later screening showed one. The initial screening is similar to an MRI scan, except patients have a IV with dye placed in their arm to trace the imaging process. The dye creates a warm sensation through the body, Fritzson said.
When she reviewed the scan images with her doctor, she saw a bulge on one of her blood vessels, which she said looked like a pimple standing out from clean, straight lines.
In early August, Dr. Ketan Ramanlal Bulsara, chief of neurosurgery at UConn Health, performed a clipping surgery. In July Fritzson had said she was apprehensive about the recovery process because she’s active.
She said her goal is to inform people about the signs, symptoms and screening process. “From day one,” she
said, “every day it affects your life.”