HEY!

Did you see this?

Musician Plays Her Violin During Brain Surgery
The King's College Hospital surgeons woke her up in the middle of the operation in order to ensure they did not compromise parts of the brain necessary for playing the violin, such as parts that control precise hand movements and coordination.

Feature this, I’m about to have my six week post-surgery appointment with MY brain surgeon. Ten and I are sitting in an MGH exam room, waiting for Doc Barker and Emily, his awesome nurse practitioner, when I come upon this fascinating article! Funny, no?

Naturally, when the good Doc arrives and asks “how you doin'"  I immediately respond “fine…OK, not totally but didya see this!?” Yeah, we had to spend the first five, ten minutes talking about Dagmar Turner’s operation. Barker allowed that I’m not (not yet anyway) a candidate for an “awake craniotomy.”

 My collection of meningiomas don’t warrant this. As you may have guessed, I see this as both a relief and a slight bummer. I mean – honest and true, how fucking cool would it actually BE to be an active, awake participant in my own damn brain surgery? VERY! At the same time, yeah, it might be kinda scary as hell. I don't totally mind that I can take a pass.

Somehow we also got around to talking about my Beach Boy ex-Neurotologist. I asked "do ya see/talk with Mike much since he moved on to R&DLand?" No, he sez, semi-wryly adding “he knows I’m mad at him for leaving.” Mad – warum? They were buds and a surgical superhero duo for 15 years. Yeah, it was hard for me when McKenna quit the craniotomy game but REALLY sad for his partner, Fred. So, we sat there calling him names for a few minutes before getting back to my wonk-ass tête.

Re: my shaking – that it's returned as I wean off the steroids, suggests to Barker that these are “Essential Tremors.” Joy. That’s what Plotkin (my overall neurological minder) said they were too.  While there’s no cure for this shit, there ARE meds which I may or may NOT be a candidate for. My next neuro-minder appointment is in May – I’ll ask him about those then.

Other  big news outta yesterday, I may NOT need to be on anti-seizure meds for the rest of my life after all. I’ll have an EEG in a few weeks which’ll help determine whether I can or can’t ditch the Keppra. Fingers are crossed!

The fewer pills I have to take each day, the better. I don’t mind downing the multi-vitamin, the B-complex, E, D and all that. It’s the take-this-pill-or-you’re-going-back-to-the-ER-unless-you-DIE-first pills that I’m less than keen on. No, that doesn't make a shitload of sense but, at the same time, it totes does. Think about it. K?

So, apart from the difficulties I’m having vis-à-vis steroids (getting my lazy-ass body back to producing its own), I’m doing OK – recovering, yes. Just too damn slow is you ask me. 

What? You didn’t ask me? Fine…just fine //sniff//