Surgery Update

Ok, I'll make this quick. So my brain surgery was supposed to begin happening October 25th, so about a week from today. I went into a doctors appointment on Thursday, just a check up with my neurologist, Dr. Pennell, before the surgery. We knew something was up when we first sat down in her office. She just looked so nervous!! She began by saying that she had been milling over my case for a few weeks, with me on her mind for awhile now. Because of this, she decided to bring my case up to the neurological council a more few times and many people on the council decided that it would be in my best interest to utilize some new resources that have recently been installed at the hospital. Part of this is because with the testing I have previously had done, the area of the brain that they believe the problems to be located has been narrowed down to a small area on the left frontal lobe. This area, however, is about the size of a plum, and she wants the area to be narrowed down to the size of a pencil eraser so that more then necessary is not removed. This area is also very close to there area where language and memory in most right handed people is located, which if removed could cause some issues. A new neurosurgeon, who's specialty is in a bit more difficult cases like mine, has been assigned to my case. Her name is Dr. Alex Golby (her site is here: http://golbylab.bwh.harvard.edu/index.html which explains in more depth some of the things she does and will be doing in my case) and according to Dr. Pennell is very meticulous in her work and knows the equipment amazingly. They both believe that by using this new facility, The AMIGO suite (here:

http://brighamandwomens.org/Departments_and_Services/amigo/default.aspx), they will be able to pinpoint the problematic area of my brain much more acutely, resulting in a much higher success rate.

Although I am a bit (well, very) disappointed that surgery will not take place when we thought it would, I believe wholeheartedly that Dr. Pennell is doing this in my best interest to insure that my quality of life will improve amazingly after this new surgeon works her magic on me. None of the test and things that I did in the past few months were for nothing, as Dr. Golby has already looked at all of the results and is coming up with a plan of attack. She does want me to have two more tests in the mean time (one is a functioning MRI, where they put you in the MRI machine and ask you to preform verbal tasks, and the other is a WADA test, where they "turn off" one side of your at a time to make decipher where certain things like memory, language and other cognitive activities is located). I have not met with her yet, but once I have, a new surgery date will be set, hopefully sooner then later. I DO NOT want to wait anxiously for a long time, and Dr. Pennell knows this. She is trying her hardest to make things so smoothly and quickly. She is an amazing doctor and I have never met one that is this smart in her field, yet so concerned with her patients as well. She said she just does not feel comfortable having me go through with the surgery without utilizing all that is available to me a this hospital. And although it feels like 2 steps backwards, it will hopefully have a much better outcome then what was previously believed.

So that is that. Fun stuff, huh? Any questions, send them my way, along with patience and determination to get me and my family through these next few months without going crazy:) As most of you now, I am not a very patient person! Thanks for reading!