My husband passed away yesterday, exactly four weeks after undergoing EDAS surgery on his right side.  He had bilateral moyamoya and had previously been in a dose-dense trial for bladder cancer involving high doses of cisplatin, but he did well in the surgery and had been healing well and feeling good.

He had a stroke on Sept. 22 that quickly turned into seizures.  He was allowed to seize for thirty-six hours (status epilepticus) at our local hospital before I had him transferred to the excellent hospital in NYC where his surgery was done.  For a week and a half, they tried to quiet his brain through sedation and three anti-seizure meds.  They got his brain quiet enough to take him off sediation, but the minute they started to withdraw the first anti-seizure drug, he went into seizures.  Finally he started having seizures on both sides, and an MRI revealed that his brain was revasuclarizing well, but his brain was like a firestorm, with many, many small strokes happening.  There was no coming out of this.

We put him on comfort care only withdrew ventilation yesterday and he passed away 20 minutes later.

My husband was a very stubborn man.  He was supposed to keep hydrated both for the cancer and the moyamoya, but he did not like to drink water and convinced himself that drinking a quart and a half of fruit juice was hydrating.  In the week before his stroke, he developed cravings for tomato juice, and went through a 64-ounce bottle of the stuff every day and a half.  And now I'm wondering if ingesting over 4000 mg of salt every day in this damn juice helped tip his healing brain over the edge.

Does anyone know of a connection between inadequate hydration combined with two much sodium, and moyamoya strokes?  Maybe it will make me ache a little bit less if I can at least be angry with him.