Erin Dohan is Ready to Talk; She Hopes You’ll Listen
The Elmhurst wife and mother’s memoir of a long journey to advocacy and learning what matters most
“If all this had to happen to someone, I am glad it happened to me,” Erin Dohan, survivor of a ruptured brain aneurysm, feels. “I wouldn’t be who I am without having had this experience. So, I am thankful in a very weird way.”
“Women in general are very quiet about what we go through.”
– Erin Dohan
The 34-year-old Elmhurst resident and author of the recently released memoir, I Think I’m Ready to Talk, suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm seven years ago. No symptoms. No family history. The young accounting controller was working from her then Oakland, CA, home one idle Wednesday when, “I suddenly felt a big clap on the back of my head,” Dohan recalled. “It was like liquid dripping down my neck.” But nothing was wet.
Erin Dohan with her husband, Patrick, and their son, Trip.
Next came powerful waves of nausea which landed her in the bathroom, as she assumed it was a sort of delayed hangover from the previous Memorial Day weekend in Napa. After several hours in a nap on the cold bathroom floor, Dohan woke and returned to her desk.
“I don’t know how I ended up back on the bathroom floor again that afternoon in a second nap,” she recalled, “but I woke up to knocking at my front door.” Erin had called her husband Patrick before falling asleep the first time. Thankfully, his intuition sensed something was very wrong and called the paramedics to their home.
Given that most paramedics are not formally trained to recognize aneurysm symptoms, Erin considers herself very lucky that the team that showed up at her house that day recognized what was causing her dilated pupils and downturned smile. Thanks to their fast action, she was rushed from the ambulance straight to a CT scan.
Her last memory of May 29, 2019, was lying in the ER with Patrick at her side, hearing a doctor say, “brain bleed in bed 1H.” That moment, things went into high alert, “and it was terrifying,” Patrick remembered. Erin was rushed by ambulance to a hospital an hour away with a nationally renowned neuro ward and surgeon. While a helicopter was considered, it was determined that it would take too long.
It was the moment that everything changed.
The five years that ensued brought one medical issue after another. In all, there were seventeen trips to the operating table and 51 days spent in hospitals, many of which followed a series of 23 ER visits. 32 scans, 18 implants, and $821,698 (before insurance) later, Erin has her life back. It took a lot of searching for answers, mostly on her own part, and a lot of knocking to find the right doors.
The road was long, both physically, as she entered medical menopause at 32 after the removal of her second ovary – and emotionally, with the loss of good friends who did not fully understand her condition. There was also great joy, however, as Erin and Patrick welcomed their son, Thomas Patrick Dohan (Trip), now five years old.
The journals Erin kept throughout years of medical challenges helped her piece together the story that became I Think I’m Ready to Talk.
Early on, Erin’s father gave her a journal during one of her hospital stays to keep notes. After six years of anecdotal recordings, Erin used the journal to piece together her story. Her memoir, I Think I’m Ready to Talk, is the result. It’s a journey from the fateful day the aneurysm ruptured to her emergence out the other side, a different person.
The book is written through Erin’s eyes, with contributions from Patrick and a few pages from her mother’s point of view. Survivors, caregivers, and other readers will find the narrative relatable. Clearly written prose breaks down advanced medical jargon with a high level of transparency. There’s even a little mild humor peppered here and there to break the heaviness.
Erin hopes survivors of ruptured aneurysms and other health issues – such as postpartum depression – will find validation in this read. “Women in general are very quiet about what we go through,” she found. “I somehow felt responsible for the scare I had given everyone with the aneurysm rupture. I started retreating into a muted mode. I became cautious of what I shared, determined to deal with it on my own. I didn’t want to be a bother.”
Along her journey, she encountered almost a dozen specialists. She realized, however, that finding capable doctors willing to listen without judgment or doubt sometimes proved difficult. “You are the expert on your own body,” Erin stated, as she emphasized the importance of finding doctors who listen and validate their patients.
She also hopes readers realize the condition of medical Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. It’s a real thing. “I am still working on allowing myself permission to acknowledge the pain, the need for rest, for a break and for some space,” Erin said. Somewhere along the line, her struggle morphed from a search exclusively for answers to include the need for permission.
“Permission to change. Permission to struggle. Permission to be quieter, sharper, messier or more distant than I used to be,” she acknowledged.
Not surprisingly, some side effects linger, such as debilitating headaches, a slightly crooked smile, and a permanently bruised lip. But she’s a survivor who knows others out there haven’t been heard. “I am really hoping that this book brings me closure, understanding, and permission to move on with it, but not from it,” Erin said.
