Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Hospital
Neurosciences Services
Success Story
Pat G.: How a Neurosurgeon Saved Her Life
 Pat G. was sweeping her backyard deck in 1996 when suddenly, everything went black. When she awoke, Pat lay semi-paralyzed on her right side, suffering from a painful headache. The next day, a local doctor told her the alarming news: “You have an aneurysm. You need to go to the hospital right away.”
“I just about fainted,” Pat says.
But Pat soon learned that an exceptional doctor at Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Hospital was taking her case. Peter Shedden, MD, a neurosurgeon with an outstanding reputation in Houston, evaluated Pat and immediately prepared for surgery. “He said, ‘We're going to take care of this; she's going to be fine,'” remembers Pat's husband, Rod. “You got the feeling he knew exactly what he was doing. Yet he was really modest and gentle.”
From midnight until 9 a.m. , Dr. Shedden worked painstakingly to clamp off the aneurysm deep inside Pat's brain. She had roughly a 2 percent chance of surviving. But she not only lived, she healed with no physical side effects. Astonished researchers from Harvard and Yale universities contacted her quickly. “They interviewed me for a long time because so few people survive this type of aneurysm,” she says.
Pat credits Dr. Shedden's skill for her recovery. Today, she volunteers at Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Hospital to help reassure critically ill patients that they're in excellent hands, as she was. Pat knows she would not be alive today without Dr. Shedden's expert care. “He's just a tremendous surgeon,” she says. “I will never forget him.”
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