Alexian Brothers Neurosciences Institute Seeking and Destroying a Hidden Enemy

Eric Mogensen says he has always considered himself to be a pretty healthy guy. He’s participated in sports since he was a child, works out regularly and leads a busy life. Until a few months ago, he had no idea a potentially dangerous enemy lurked in his brain. That’s when he learned he had an arteriovenous malformation (AVM), an abnormal tangle of blood vessels. AVMs in the brain can cause of variety of problems, especially when they bleed, including severe or fatal strokes. “When you find out something like this, it hits you like a ton of bricks, “ says Eric who is 30 years old.

Eric experienced his first symptom, an excruciating headache, one Sunday last October. On Monday morning he still had the headache, but he went to the office anyway. There his girlfriend, Melanie, noticed he was in a lot of pain and urged him to get the situation checked out by a medical professional right away. He went to a local urgent care center, and when the prescribed medication didn’t help, Eric was told he needed a CT scan. The doctor who performed the scan suspected an aneurysm and referred Eric to Alexian Brothers Neurosciences Institute.

Eric underwent a complete battery of tests at the medical center that indicated he had an AVM, which could have been there since birth. After studying the results of Eric’s tests, neurosurgeon Dr. Szymon Rosenblatt consulted with Dr. Franklin Marden, an Alexian Brothers Hospital Network neurointerventional radiologist to discuss treatment options.

“Because the malformation was so large, they decided it would be best to perform a staged embolization first to gradually cut off the blood supply to the AVM, making surgery easier and safer,” says Ginger Reilly, nurse practitioner, interventional neuroradiology and stroke. Dr. Marden performed the embolization in four stages over a period of several months and, when that was complete, Dr. Rosenblatt surgically removed the arteriovenous malformation from Eric’s brain during an 11-hour procedure.

Eric is now on the road to recovery and doing well. “I feel good and I’m anxious to carry on with my life,” says Eric. “I was very fortunate to end up at Alexian Brothers Medical Center, which is one of the best places to be if you have an AVM. The whole staff was unbelievable. If it weren’t for them and the support of my girlfriend and my family, I might not be sitting here talking today.”