The Surgery

This is for those of you who actually want to know how it's done...this is my disclaimer, if you don't want to know, don't read on!

The surgery should take about 3 or 4 hours. I'll be face down on something like a massage table, unfortunately under much different circumstances. Yes, they have to shave my head (everyone asks that, so I'll just get that out of the way). Thankfully, my surgeon only shaves the minimal amount of hair necessary. Some neurosurgeons shave the bottom half of the head; that may have been a deal breaker for me. I don't mean to be vain, but this is horrible enough as it is, why add a half bald head to the equation if not necessary? I'm just saying...

Anyway, they'll make a vertical incision, about 4" or so, at the base of my skull down my neck. They'll remove about a quarter size portion or more of my skull, I'm assuming with some sort of saw, and then my top vertebrae and possibly the one underneath. After than it's up in the air. Awesome, huh? So my poor family in the waiting room gets to sit and wait to see what happens next. I'll find out in recovery if after that point they decided to:

a. stitch me up (highly unlikely due to the amount of pain I'm in which indicates a great deal of pressure);
b. remove the duraand replace it with bovine cardiac tissue (that's fancy talk for pig heart) to provide more space or;
c. remove the dura, spilt (as in CUT) the brain tonsil to remove even more pressure and then add the pig heart, I mean bovine cardiac tissue.

So, I'm not really sure of the exact details of which surgery I'm having; they'll decide once I'm in the operating room and they see what they are working with. It's rather unsettling, to be honest. But again, I feel most sorry for my family. I know what's it's like to be sitting in the waiting room doing exactly that...waiting. Waiting for my mom to come out of surgery was torture. I wish there was some way I could speed time or give them the peace I'll be granted by my heavy sedation. Obviously I'm worried and scared out of my mind, but there's a tremendous sense of relief that comes with knowing that I don't have to do that waiting. I just have to show up and give them my arm to be put to sleep for a while.

And the moment I wake up and can articulate an intelligent thought, and I can feel my fingers and toes and see my kids, nothing else will matter.