Cameron Michael Fathauer

On the morning of February 11, 2023, I went to play pickup basketball like I did every week. I played for ten minutes, made a couple shots, then felt this rush of weakness come upon me as I approached the half court line. I bent down on my knees, and a dramatic wave of darkness overtook me. For some reason I stood up, lost consciousness, and landed on the back of my head. It happened so early into the game that I hadn’t even broken a sweat yet! I am 6′ 3″ and 215 pounds, which is a lot of height and weight for a brain to take. I laid there unconscious for three to five minutes.

I woke up on the ground with the guys all around. Kyle J. to my left and Caleb P. to my right and Karen directly above me. They had already called an ambulance. I told them to call off the ambulance, but they knew my history and said I needed to be checked out. I also half-jokingly told them not to tell my wife because she wouldn’t let me play basketball anymore. They laughed. Those guys have been very good to me, and it was really special seeing how much they cared. In fact, they all laid hands on me and said a prayer before EMS arrived with the stretcher.

The ambulance took me to a level one trauma unit at the University of Louisville Hospital. A gentleman named James sat in the “bus” with me. He has three young kids, and we talked about this and that. He was working a 72 hour shift with Lauren, the driver. Lauren is still in training and hoping to become a flight medic someday. Nice small talk.

Upon arrival I met my nurse (Larissa) and doctors (Dr. Craig and Dr. Furtoni, among others). Chelsea arrived soon after I checked in. A gentleman named Mike showed up to the hospital about ten minutes after Chelsea. Mike is a leader of the small group Chelsea and I attend each week. It was really kind of him to be there. It was interesting because just a few days ago he said he wanted to get coffee with me – “but no rush,” he had said. This ER time together acted as a substitute to our coffee date, despite it being kind of “rushed.” Mike bought Chelsea food and prayed for us before he left.

My parents drove down from Columbus, IN, to be there with me and Chelsea. It brought back a lot of deja vu for them all. Seven years ago that same group, among many others, were waiting, praying, and worrying together at a different hospital about my brain while I was in a coma. Day after day, week after week, they were just waiting for me to wake. I truly have no clue what they all went through.

The doctors ordered two CTs on my head. The first head CT showed a small brain bleed near my forehead. The brain bleed was small enough that they said it would likely dissolve on its own. I will follow up for that in the next four weeks. They also checked my heart using an ultrasound and found nothing wrong there.

After being in the ER for about eight hours, no one could figure out why I randomly lost consciousness during a pickup basketball game. But the second CT provided an indirect answer.

The second head CT was called a CTA, which means it includes an angiogram (aka “contrast”). The CTA revealed a small aneurysm on my brain – which alarmed everyone. If an aneurysm is not dealt with, and it ruptures, it can end a life in seconds. In a very real sense, it is a ticking time bomb.

At first I was annoyed by the events of the day because it felt like a purposeless interruption. I wanted to spend the day hanging and studying with Chelsea, but instead I spent it in a small hospital room for eleven hours. Although we spent a lot of time together, it was not the ideal context, to say the least.

But after discovering the aneurysm I began to put it together:

• The perfect context: I randomly collapse during a pickup basketball with a great group of guys that know me and my TBI history. So they called for an ambulance quickly.
• The perfect timing: It happened on a weekend when we were all available to get through this together.
• The perfect injury: If I had not been injured in that way or lost consciousness as I did, they would not have done the head CTs and found the aneurysm.

No one knows how long the aneurysm has been there – or if it was caused by the original TBI or something else – but now we all know that it is there. And we are monitoring it and getting appointments in place as soon as possible. It was bad, but it was also good. It was painful, but it was also purposeful. It was time-consuming, but it was also time-saving.

First it was the TBI in 2015, then it was the Lyme’s disease in 2017, and now it is an aneurysm coupled with a concussion in 2023. While my brain has been under attack, for some reason, He has kept me intact.

Update (03/28/23) — after a comprehensive angiogram, the doctor said I do not have any aneurysms, just an abnormality in my vessel shape. This is good news! But I am not deleting this post because it reflects an encouraging perspective that I tend to hold in the face of adversity. A perspective I hope you too possess, or will possess soon.

p/c