175 years and still going strong: how RMH saved the life of a young mum and her unborn baby

Melbourne mum Brianna Magdalani was young, fit and pregnant when “an explosion” suddenly went off in her head, as she became the victim of a massive stroke.

Bride-to-be Brianna Magdalani had so much to look forward to as she prepared for bed on a cool Tuesday night in Melbourne last April.

Final preparations were well underway for her June wedding to fiance Jonathan Covich and she was feeling as fit and healthy as she had ever been. Brianna was also delighting in being 16 weeks pregnant with their first baby.

Life was good. And then it wasn’t.

Brianna says she felt an explosion in her head. It was, doctors told her much later, a catastrophic brain bleed and she’d suffered a stroke.

Rushed to the Royal Melbourne Hospital, neurosurgeons found a congenital brain arteriovenous malformation; a lethal time bomb that was a tangled web of blood vessels connecting arteries and veins to her brain.

It had ruptured and Brianna and her unborn baby were in for the fight of their lives.

“Doctors said it was one of the biggest haemorrhages they had seen, and they didn’t think they could save us,” Brianna said this week, finally home after 11 months recovering in the Royal Melbourne Hospital and at rehabilitation.

In hospital Brianna says she continued to grow her baby “lying on my back”.

“I was in a coma for nearly two months,” she says. “When I woke all I remember Jonathan telling me was that I’d had a stroke. I told him that wasn’t possible, I said: ‘I am young and fit and healthy’.”

Brianna Magdalani was just 29 and 16 weeks pregnant when she suffered a catastrophic brain bleed. Picture: Wayne Taylor

Brianna spent two months in a coma fighting for her own life and that of her baby daughter, Mahali who is now six-months-old. Picture: Wayne Taylor

Her fiance reassured Brianna that their unborn daughter was fine and at 36 weeks Mahali Audrey Marie – named in honour of her grandmothers – was born via caesarean.

“The hospital saved both of our lives,” Brianna says.

Jonathan has taken time off work as a physiotherapist to care for Mahali, now six-months-old, and to support Brianna as she continues her long road to recovery.

“He came to the hospital every day with Mahili,” Brianna said.

She remains paralysed on her left side and in a wheelchair. It means, Brianna says, that she can’t pick up her daughter or play with her on the floor making it more difficult, but not impossible, for the determined pair to bond.

Brianna with Jonathan Covich, before her stroke. Picture: Supplied

Brianna Magdalani, now 30, with daughter Mahali. Picture: Wayne Taylor

When she left the Royal Melbourne Hospital for the last time on Friday the team formed a guard of honour and applauded – as much for her courage as that of the remarkable team who fought so hard to save a young mother and her daughter.

They sent Brianna home in time to celebrate her 30th birthday: a simple affair she says in a local park with family and close friends.

Brianna was more than ready to leave hospital, although after almost a year she says the hospital had become a community and the medical team more like family.

“I am ready to get my life back, even though so much has changed,” she says.

“I have a lot of incentives, the main one is that I just want to be able to walk down the aisle.”

As the Royal Melbourne Hospital prepares to celebrate its milestone 175th birthday on Wednesday, Brianna says she will be forever grateful.

“I was so blessed to have Professor Alex Adamides as my neurologist,” she says. “He is one of the best, and I got really lucky to have the best that night.”