Life changing Experience Every day you hear of people having some sort of surgery on their body. Well can you imagine having a brain surgery? Well I’ve actually experienced it, and I’m going to tell you how it all started. A soft cough and I felt a soft pain; then, I sneeze and I feel a sharper pain. At first, these symptoms did not mean much to me and I never thought much about them, but who knew that one minor car accident would trigger and lead to multiple MRI’s? That minor accident I was involved in was a blessing for me because two years ago I was diagnosed with a brain malformation. Later I became aware that I was born with it and it is rare. Most people are not aware of Chiari Malformation, a chronic illness that affects the cerebellum it has been unnoticed for years. I became aware one day at children’s hospital. One day after a series of multiple MRI’S and hours of being at the hospital. As me and my mom are getting ready to leave the hospital I hear her phone ring, and it’s the Neurosurgeon calling to tell my mom that I needed to come back immediately to discuss a urgent procedure. We go back up and the woman starts talking then calmly explains to me and my mom what exactly was going on. Then she asked me …show more content…
That day I felt one of the most excruciating pains in my life. This particular surgery involved making a cut in the back of my head and surgically removing a piece at the bottom of the skull; therefore I could not move any part of my body, and I was also in ICU the first few days. My family was so emotional coming in to see me in that much pain many of them even cried. Until this day I still have few problems such headaches at the back of my neck. Of course I’m still getting treated and monitored for it, because the bone can always grow back. My doctor prescribed me pain medication that I have to take every day for the pain, but at times I have to just sleep them
The clip that was particularly memorable was the story of both Katie Worrick and Michael Rehbein’s hemispherectomy. From a neurological perspective, it was astounding to watch both these children survive and function without a part of their brain and if that wasn’t enough they were functioning remarkably well from a cognitive point of reference. I did wonder at first why Katie was still not speaking, but realized that her surgery was still recent when the documentary was made. Just like Michael, who took about 2 years after surgery to regain some of his speech after persistently working on it, Katie too could hope for the same. Having said that, I am also aware of Neuroscientist Dana Boatman’s conclusion that results and recovery times vary from child to child. I did try to find out more about the two children featured in this documentary to see how much life had improved, but could not find any documented information except for an answer to a blog about hemispherectomy by Katie’s mom that said, “My name is Janie Warrick and I live in Richmond, VA. My daughter, Katie who is now 17, had a left hemispherectomy Aug. 8, 2000 in Baltimore, Maryland at Johns Hopkins
The first patient I saw was a 14 month old boy who sustained a non-accidental head injury. He underwent surgery in July that relieved the excess pressure and fluid around his brain, resulting in him becoming a left hemiplegic.
In 1978 a 19-year-old Indian girl, Bhagawhandi P., suffering from a malignant brain tumor was admitted to hospice due to her astrocytoma. There are several types of astrocytoma that can form anywhere in the central nervous system (brain & spinal cord). This appeared when she was only seven-years-old. Though it was restricted and not as malignant, allowing her to lead a normal life for ten following years. “She lived life to the full, lived it gratefully…for she knew she had a ‘time bomb’ in her head” (Sacks, 1985). When she was eighteen, the tumor returned with higher levels of malignancy and it was no longer removable.
When I think about the moments leading up to my diagnosis I remember feeling weak, confused, shaky and sleepy. I did not notice that I had began sleeping throughout the day. My body was craving soft drinks like soda and juice but not food. Days would go by and I eventually fell into a deep slumber that I found myself only waking up from to use the bathroom. I knew something was wrong and that if I did not get to a hospital it would get worse. Nothing could have prepared me for the life changing diagnosis I would receive.
Untreated hydrocephalus has a 50 to 60% death rate, with the survivors having varying degrees of intellectual, physical, and neurologic disabilities.
The case of patient H.M. or Henry Molaison is a very interesting one. Henry Molaison was born on February 26th, 1926 and suffered from epilepsy most likely caused from a bike accident he had when he was young, although it is disputed his actual age of when the accident happened. Henry suffered from partial seizures up until he was 16 when he began to experience several grand mal seizures, a seizure that affects the whole brain. In 1953 Henry was referred to Dr. William Beecher Scoville, a neurosurgeon at Hartford Hospital for treatment. To treat Henry’s seizures Dr. Scoville suggested surgical removal of Henry’s right and left medial temporal lobes. On September 1st, 1953, Dr. Scoville operated on a 27 year old Henry Molaison, removing Henry’s
First off, what is a brain surgeon for those who don’t know? A brain surgeon is a Medical practitioner qualified to perform surgical operations on the brain, and other Parts of the neuro system. Brain surgery is not an easy job, sometimes surgeons can’t Save the patient’s life, and they die, but some succeed, some love surgery. Surgery Is not as easy as it looks, especially the process you have to go through to become
Day two: on arrival to 3N at 530 am our clinical instructor handed as the RN patient report to see if anything had changed from yesterday. My second day was less stressful than my first because I had an idea of what is required. I was assigned to stay the same patient. I was more comfortable providing patient care and medication administration without feeling much pressure because I got to review my patient’s medication over the night before my second day. On my second I was also a little bit more settled than my first day, I was able to spend more time caring for my patient. I had completed safety check on my patient and witnessed the dose of insulin and heparin with another RN nurse before administering, double checking medication and
When I was around the age of 10 I had my very first surgery on my left leg. It was a moment I would never be able to forget. Not so much because it was hurtful or awful, but because it was an amazing moment, it made me realize many things I wouldn't be able to without that experiment.
“She has been so strong and hasn’t let out a single tear. On the contrary, she has been consoling me,” I overheard my father saying on the phone as he was sobbing. I remember being filled with dread because up until that point, I had never seen my father cry. Later that night my parents sat me down and informed me that my mother had a brain tumor. Her debilitating headaches should have told us something was very wrong, however we were too young to know any better. Nevertheless, we were assured that she would be fine once the lime-sized growth from her brain was removed. During her hospitalization and recovery, I was eager to have my healthy, independent mother back. Unfortunately, my vision was faulty and instead she came home depressed and
It’s never fun to go through surgery, no matter what it is. It doesn’t matter if it’s for your own health, for someone else’s wellbeing, or for emergency scale circumstances. Finding out that a surgery is necessary for life to go on is a bit of a shock. First comes the knowledge that surgery is necessary, than information on what will happen during surgery. Most people wonder what’s the worst possible thing that could happen during a procedure of such importance. Some will ask what’s the survival ratio or other consciences to a surgery. Others think of ways to avoid surgery all together. Even knowing that there’s a possibility things can go wrong shakes most people with fear.
Well since the worst bone I broke was the vertebrate you’re probably thinking that, but that’s absolutely wrong. The most pain I have ever experienced is when I broke my left ring finger. I can remember the day like it was yesterday. It was Halloween night of my 8th grade year and I was at one of my good friends playing in a backyard football game. While being thrown to the ground during the game, I put my hand down to brace my fall. For some reason my ringer struck the ground first at a weird angle. I felt an insanely sharp pain and looked at my finger down on the ground. The image I saw will never escape my head. My finger was turned about 90 degrees in it’s socket and bent way across my pinkey. Writing these last few sentences have been a real struggle. Making me sick to my stomach and giving me the chills. One of my good friends Kayden Olthouse had this to say about the innocent, “it looked like another basic play in football but when Pete got up screaming “look at my finger!” we all stopped and grimaced at the sight, very disgusting”. The nasty experience continued when I went to the doctors and saw my X-Rays. My bone was totally out of its socket and the doctor enlightened me that he was going to have to move the bone back in pace by sheer force from himself. The cool thing is that they had this live X-Ray thingy where you could see the bone and where it was moving when he pushed on it. So I could literally see my bone moving back into the
My exposure to the medical profession has been in the form of working with patients in a
I glanced to my right and saw my family was with me, which comforted me. They explained I was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. Words cannot even begin to describe the amount of pain I was in after I woke up. Instead of the old saying, “finding a needle in a haystack”, it felt like I was trying to find the one piece of hay in a needle stack. I told the nurse to turn the lights off because light made everything worse. My vision was distorted, and everything was starting to turn black. The nurse quickly hooked me up on an IV and a heavy dose of morphine. The morphine helped a little, and made me feel quite ok for the time being. I stayed in the hospital for a couple of days on heavy pain medicine while they ran some tests on me. The first test ran on me was a CT scan to find if I had problems in my head, but couldn’t find any. Following that, I had to get a Lumbar Puncture, which is when you get a needle inserted into the lower spine to extract fluid surrounding the brain and spinal cord. Let me tell you, the pain from this procedure was only second to my migraines as the worst pain in my life. The doctors could not find anything wrong with my brain, which was great to hear, but at the same time scary because I still did not know what was causing these
An event that changed my life was the first year of middle school. I was around eleven or twelve at the time.