Deerfield Woman Attends Upcoming Conference on Brain Bleeds in Chicago

DEERFIELD, IL (JUNE 16, 2015) - “This is a club I never wanted to be apart of,” says Deerfield, Illinois resident and former realtor, Nicki Milin, who unknowingly suffered from a brain bleed since she was 10 years old.

“Ever since I was a little girl, I would wake up with severe vertigo, spinning, knocking pictures off the wall, falling to the floor, reaching for anything to hang on to as I dropped to the center of the earth,” said Milin.

Over the years, Milin complained of feeling light headed, dizzy and the occasional frightening vertigo spins. However, it would not be until much later that she found out she had a brain bleed.

“It happened much to my surprise one afternoon when I was 51 years old,” Milin continues. “The room was spinning and I flew to the floor trying to grab the bedpost for dear life. I was crawling and could feel my eyesight change to double vision. I thought I was dying. When it finally stopped, I lay panting on the floor for quite awhile before I tried to move, and my life has never been the same since.”

Thanks to the miracle of the MRI machine, doctors discovered Milin had a cavernous angioma, a mulberry-shaped abnormal blood vessel in the stem of her brain. Cavernous angiomas are estimated to occur in approximately 1.5 million people in the United States.

Milin had brain surgery at Stanford University Hospital in California five years later and is still on the long road to recovery. She hopes to start a local support group for fellow brain sufferers, continue adding to her blog ‘Got Brain Bleed!’ as well as finish her book on surviving vertigo and a brain bleed.

She is looking forward to attending the Angioma Alliance Family Conference at the Hyatt Lodge in Oak Brook July 24-26, 2015 to learn coping skills, the latest in medical technology and her share experiences with others.

The world’s leading expert on this illness, Dr. Issam Awad, will discuss the disease, genetics, spinal cavernous angiomas as well as the latest information on drug treatments and clinical trials. Dr. Elliot Roth, Chair of Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine’s Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, will also be on hand to present advancements in post-stroke rehabilitation.

To find out more about cavernous angiomas or the Angioma Alliance Family Conference please visit www.angiomaalliance.org or email Dr. Connie Lee at coordinator@angioma.org