PLATTSBURGH -- Looking back on that fateful day in May 2005, Jan Washburn now recognizes the symptoms that suggested something was wrong.

But when she collapsed while at work for Plattsburgh Mountain Valley Teleservices, she had no idea that the insidious cause of her ailment would change her life forever.

"I had just gotten back to work from lunch maybe 20 minutes earlier," she said. "I remember that I started feeling dizzy and seeing these red circles in my field of vision.

"I thought I was having a stroke and asked my supervisor to call me an ambulance. Then I passed out."

Washburn, of Keeseville, still cannot remember anything after that point.

"I have a lot of curiosity about everything, and I've interviewed my husband (David) often about it," she said.

She learned that the doctors at the CVPH Medical Center Emergency Department had first thought she was suffering from food poisoning, considering that she had just returned from lunch prior to the attack.

But shortly after her arrival at the ER, a friend who had eaten with her arrived and said they had both had the same meal and so it could not be from the food.

"They did a CAT scan and saw that I had suffered a ruptured aneurysm and needed to be transferred to a place with a neurosurgeon," she said.

LONG RECOVERY

An aneurysm, which can occur in other areas of the body as well, is a bulge in a blood vessel that can be dangerous and even deadly if it ruptures.

North Country Life Flight was called in, and Washburn was transported to Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington, where she spent about three weeks in Intensive Care and Recovery, most of which she does not remember to this day.

"When I started to come to, I remember asking my husband if I stroked out,'" she said. "He said, No, you had a brain aneurysm,' and I remember thinking that sounded better than a stroke."

But the road to recovery proved long and extensive. Home again, she spent six weeks in physical therapy and had many problems with her balance and speech.

"Once I got home, reality set in, and I realized it was going to be a lot harder than I thought," she said. "It was a rough year with a lot of adjustments."