Oct 15
The brain receives twenty percent of the body’s blood. When the skull is removed, the brain pulsates like a heart. *beat* *beat* *beat*They kept telling me that if I began to feel faint, I should sit straight down on the floor. I’m certain that it’s distracting for a brain surgeon to have his admin pass out while he’s performing surgery. Thankfully, I didn’t pass out. In fact, the only times I felt woozy was when they started talking about me feeling woozy. As soon as they began to focus on their masterful dance of neurosurgery, I was completely clear headed; fascinated. Sawing open the skull was probably the least comfortable part for me. They use a small circular bone saw, and it sounds like any other saw, and when they’re making the incisions into the skull, bone dust fills the air.
You can smell the warm blood and bone and the warmth of the friction of the saw. I turned my head away for that part. First, they peel back the scalp. Don’t shave their head, though, a shaved head dramatically increases the risk for infection. Peel back the scalp, and then put small blue clamps along the cut scalp, the pressure will help slow the blood from flowing. The scalp is very vascularized, you know. Then make small holes in the skull. Cut open the skull, and put the bone in a freezer for later. Underneath the skull is the dura mater. Dura mater is very similar in consistency to a tarp. Yunno, a tarp like you throw under your tent when you’re camping. It’s not blue though, it’s white-ish and pink with blood. You can’t see the brain pulsing yet. Peel back the dura mater, and there, behold, the Big Beautiful Brain. It looks just like the toy brains you find in the costume stores. there are various blue and red veins and arteries that feed blood into the brain. It’s wrinkled and folded, and it’s pulsating. *beat* *beat* *beat.*Brain surgery is fascinating. You’ll never believe it until you actually stand there and watch it. The doctors are artists, and they move with precision and humor. The doctor was listening to reggae for a good portion of the operation. He placed thin plastic electrode-filled strips along the brain and then sewed them into the dura mater. Sometimes he would slide the thin plastic pieces between the remaining skull and dura mater and the brain. One time he must have hit the child’s brain stem, because the kid’s vitals dropped dramatically for only a few seconds. The doctor called out his placement while two other people took seperate notes as to where the doctor had placed the grid. After placing almost twenty of these strips along the brain, the doctor pulled the dura mater over the strips, covering them like you would if you were making your bed. They stitched up the dura mater and then pulled the scalp back over the brain. They left the skull bone out, because they won’t need to put that back on until the surgery to remove these plastic pieces. Coming from the ends of the plastic, and sticking out from the cut in the scalp, are wires that plug into a monitor. The child will be plugged into the monitor for a few weeks, while they electrically monitor his seizures, thus locating the part of the brain that is diseased and causing the seizures. The nurses kept asking me, “Are you a medical student?”“Not yet,” I answer.
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