Communication with Friends & Family

When mine was found I immediately told my wife and sons, and my siblings, did not tell my mother as she is older and didn't want to worry her. In my mind it is important that the people around you know what's going on in case you get symptoms and need to react quickly, you may not be able to advocate for yourself so they will have to. I also wanted to make sure everything was taken care of, you expect the best outcome but need to plan for the worst, so needed to make sure they all knew what to do in case something happened, I had my will and all other documents updated.

Beyond that it is up to each person, I told my closest friends and right before surgery my peers and boss at work as I of course needed to be out for a few weeks.

In my case, my aneurysm was found already large at 5.2 so my surgery was 2 months after, so everything was more pressing, but in my mind I would have done the same if my aneurysm had been smaller and I had been in follow up protocol.

Hope that helps

I let family and friends know, because I feel like it's a time bomb, and I don't know when something might happen, and I pray that someone will be with me and know what to do--to call 911. And it helps to relieve the stress by talking about it.

I'd say close family for sure, because sometimes aneurysms are genetic and it's something they should be aware of. Otherwise it's a personal choice. Aneurysms are potentially awfully serious, we know that, but being aware of them and taking the necessary meds and behavioral precautions, they are manageable.

When my aneurysm grew from 4.2 to 4.7 I quit playing softball. I let the manager know just so he didn't think I dropped out because I was upset about something. Close friends know as well - we just share what's going on in each others' lives. I would hesitate to tell an employer unless your aneurysm requires that you have some kind of reasonable accommodation at work.