Tuesday, March 26, 2013

My Brain Surgery


I can't believe it but, I've had brain surgury. I keep repeating it to myself because it's so hard to believe. It all came about in a rather routine kind of way....It was New Years eve  and upon entering my building I ran into a neighbor, we compared notes and talked about our evenings as we walked up the stairs I stopped on my floor then leaned over the railing to continue the conversation and thats the last thing I remember of that night, 6 hours later I woke up in the hospital with no idea how I got there. I was fine, I had had a concussion but was feeling ok, they did numerous tests, cat scans and such and wouldnt let me eat in case I needed to be operated on, nothing developed and after 2 days I was released.

   A month later I went to the Nuero surgeon for a follow up visit, he told that often when people do what I did there is no follow up visit. If I had landed a millimeter this way or that I might not have made it, it's pure luck that I survived, that made me think " how easy it really is to die" It's all a gift really, living, and it can dissappear at the drop of a hat, just like the ending of the Sopranos, at a certain point the switch has to get flicked.

I used to worry so much about dying, then, I almost died. It was pretty effortless, not much to worry about really, what a relief.
In preparation for my second follow up visit to the nuero surgean, he, Dr Hirschfeld, asked me to get another cat scan, so I was finally given an appointment for last friday March 9 and after I got it the cat scan operators called my doctor and his office called me, could I come out to Lutheran hospital in Brooklyn that afternoon to see Dr Hirschfeld? Sure, so I trekked out to sunset park and entered the emergency room, they got me a bed and I met with the Dr. and he said he needed to operate, a sub dural hematoma had developed and it needed to be removed. It was a collection of blood between my brain and my skull and it was causing pressure and would be fatal if it was not removed.

   So last friday morning, the 15th, I went back to Lutheran hospital, they strapped me down like Jesus and drilled a little hole through my skull and inserted a drain, this was my brain surgury, fairly routine but still, brain surgury, performed by Dr Alan Hershfeld…well done!

A week later the stichess and staples came out and its all back to normal….quite surprising that this would be a part of my life….I wonder what's next

1 comment:

E.S. said...

wow... so your brain is ok again? I mean... it is the way it used to be?