Laura Pitts Age 44 has lived in Hennessey most of her life. Has been cutting hair for 25 years, 15 of that she’s owned her beauty salon P&R Hair Design. On September 19th, a traumatic brain injury called Subarachnoid Hemorrhage (brain aneurysm on the frontal lobe) was suffered. Because of the aneurysm bursting it caused a stroke afterward. She was taken to Mercy Hospital in Kingfisher, where several tests were done, and we found out about the aneurysm. She was immediately medi-flighted to Mercy Hospital in Oklahoma City, where more testing was done. We found out her biggest reason for the aneurysm was high blood pressure due to an overabundance of stress, but because of the place the aneurysm was located on the sensory the brain uses tells the body it needs spinal fluid, her body kept making an overload of fluids causing pressure to build up and ruptured the aneurysm. Her only symptoms before the aneurysm burst were severe migraines and headaches. On her 1st day at mercy, they went in through the main artery in her right leg and put a coiled stent around the burst artery to stop the bleeding. After she developed a shake in her hands and she went under ten drip medication procedures in a span of 17 days, which is strong medication dripped straight onto the brain to help with overstimulation, causing the brain not to absorb the overabundance of blood and spinal fluid from the injury. In order to force her body to absorb the fluids in her brain, they had to keep her blood pressure elevated which then caused her body major swell from a major amount of fluid intake and not pushing fluid out enough. Because of the amount of fluid in her body, she was put on a ventilator for one week and one day due to problems with breathing. The air canal around her lungs began to fill with fluid. Being on the vent ended up being a good thing because it allowed her body to rest and heal. Once she was taken off the vent, she developed Atelectasis. She was then put on a bypass oxygen mask for a day. She then underwent two more Drip procedures before finally being able to start working in physical therapy. On day 30 (October 19th), she was transferred to St Mary’s of Enid to undergo extreme physical therapy, which included lifting, walking, balance, and more. Her first week in, she fell down and broke her wrist and had to have a pin put in. She does currently still have a cast on.
We go in the morning to talk to her caseworker about more aftercare for when she can leave. We’re hoping she’ll be released on the 11th! by Breanna Mondoux