An Anniversary of a Scalping

The date was March 20th, 2003.

The operating room was just around the corner. My anesthesiologist, a flamboyant and intelligent man, would wheel me in shortly and have me count backward from 10 while putting me under. But before that happened, though, I had to speak with a hospital lawyer.

"You need to sign here," the woman said.

"You mean right here, where it says I have a 7% chance of dying during the operation?" I returned.

She smiled as much as she was allowed, considering the nerve-wracking situation and explained calmly that if I didn't sign, then they couldn't, by law, operate on me. My pen scrawled. She shuffled through papers and pulled out more documents, all of them for the purpose of releasing the hospital from responsibility in the event of certain deficits I might suffer during the operation. One said I might have a heart attack. Another said I might lose specific motor functions like walking and holding my head up straight. There were others I don't remember, but the one that frightened me the most detailed how I might lose the function of language in varying degrees.

I signed all of them.

Cross-section Profile - MRI

About an hour and half later . . . my brain touched air. To get to it my neurosurgeon peeled my scalp back and snipped away some jaw muscles that were attached to the side of my head. That's right, I can say I've been scalped. Once my bright and shiny skull was exposed she drilled four holes in it and then sawed between the holes - like a sort of cranial connect-the-dots. They removed that skull piece and then had to cut open the menenges (aka the brain bag).

From there they could reach in and remove the lesion that had grown on top of my brain. I was really lucky it was on my brain, rather than in my brain. Invasive surgery like that is even more dangerous. The lesion, apparently, was yellow and about the size of one of those large 25 cent gum balls you can get from a machine at the front of a supermarket.

Gum ball in my head.

They never did find out why I had a brain lesion. The official diagnosis was brain bacterial abscess caused by unknown infection. I saw a lot of doctors shrug their shoulders those two weeks and a few of them even told me I was in the books - as in, the books of anomalous medical afflictions. These days, I suppose the source of the condition doesn't matter as much as the fact that I'm still breathing.

When all was said and done I healed. Eight years later the only physical remnants of my surgery is four titanium plates, 18 screws and one gigantic, bitchin' scar.

Let's talk about scars for a second. I love them. I'm attracted to people with scars, and if you're a hot chick with a scar I get fidgety and my palms start to sweat. I think scars are gorgeous and while they are aesthetically beautiful, their most attractive quality is the story behind them. It's the stories that get me. Some people fuss and moan over the advent of scars and they apply heroic amounts of salves and oils to prevent them or make them go away. Not me. I wanna see those flaws! I wanna see them on myself.

Now, I mentioned above the physical remnants of my surgery. What about the emotional pieces? I gleaned many lessons from my experience with brain surgery, but the one certain perspective that stands out the most is my relationship with morals. After I recovered, I had an intensely sharp sense of right and wrong. And what's more, I had far less fear in my way - a fear that would normally prevent me from acting on my morals.
The crappy thing is that I sometimes forget this perspective and I end up floundering in petty issues, but this is something with which all of us find a struggle.

Scar that looks like a question mark.

And what of my language skills that I so feared losing? For two weeks after the surgery I was having trouble speaking. At times, it took an immense amount of brain power just to get through a simple sentence like, "I want to go to the grocery store." Compound sentences were even more difficult. Luckily, this was only temporary and simply due to the head trauma. It cleared up and now I'm writing compound, run-on, verbose, chock-full, knee-jerk sentences in a blog that you're gracious enough to read.

So, each year, I take a moment to think about the stories and trials connected with this time in my life. I was 28. Imagine being 28-years-old and growing a brain lesion for reasons unknown. So weird. There are many stories from then that I did not include here . . . which is just as well because I have to save some for each anniversary in the years to come.