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‘I feel like I’ve been shot in the head’: Mother, daughter survive complex brain aneurysms

Vivian Ramirez Galvez (left) suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm in December 2022 and had lifesaving surgery with a team led by UT Southwestern neurosurgeon Rafael De Oliveira Sillero, M.D. Seven months later after a screening, Vivian’s mother, Susana, also was diagnosed with an aneurysm and had surgery with Dr. Sillero, but hers did not rupture.

Vivian Ramirez Galvez (left) suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm in December 2022 and had lifesaving surgery with a team led by UT Southwestern neurosurgeon Rafael De Oliveira Sillero, M.D. Seven months later after a screening, Vivian’s mother, Susana, also was diagnosed with an aneurysm and had surgery with Dr. Sillero, but hers did not rupture.

Vivian Ramirez Galvez had never experienced a headache like the one that caused her to faint at DFW International Airport in December 2022. “I don’t know what a gunshot feels like,” she told her mother, Susana Galvez. “But I feel like I’ve been shot in the head.”

The next day, Vivian’s primary care doctor said it was possible her headache resulted from the after effects of a new COVID-19 strain she recently had. But five days later, her pain was so intense she was having difficulty standing. So Vivian went to a hospital emergency room.

That’s where a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) exam revealed a life-threatening complex ruptured aneurysm near the base of Vivian’s skull measuring about 2 centimeters (cm). Doctors in the ER contacted Texas Health Dallas (THD), where she was scheduled for lifesaving surgery the next day with UT Southwestern neurosurgeon Rafael De Oliveira Sillero, M.D. The surgery took place at the UTSW Neurosurgery and Spine Center at THD, one of the leading facilities in Texas for treating this type of aneurysm.

Vivian, now 36, is among the 0.01% of Americans who suffer ruptured brain aneurysms each year. Dr. Sillero said only about half of those patients survive.

Seven months later, after being screened, Vivian’s mother also was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm, although hers had not ruptured. Thanks to highly specialized and patient-tailored endovascular surgical treatments by Dr. Sillero and his UTSW team, the two patients not only survived, but made full recoveries.

Their stories shed light on a less understood but highly consequential factor involving aneurysms: family history. Having immediate relatives who’ve had a brain aneurysm can increase the risk up to four times that of the general population.