…..but am afraid they might use as evidence to question my mental recovery:
My brain was experiencing inflammation. Does that mean that brain juice squirted out when the surgeon cut the skull?
The surgeon describes the tumor as “six centimeters,” but also says that it was tubular in shape. Therefore, using a two-dimensional descriptor of “six centimeters” doesn’t make much sense. How much mass was actually removed? Did someone weigh it? What is the actual mass of the tumor? How was that mass estimated? Also, was the “six centimeters” diameter, radius, circumference….or something else?
Did any neural pathways get cut in the surgery? Did dendrites get cut in the surgery? If so, are they already starting to reconnect or heal? The goal of radiation and chemotherapy seems to be a reduction of inflammation in the brain (I think), so will some neural pathways end up overlapping? Or will they get zapped by radiation?
Did the surgeon cut by hand or remotely? He couldn’t zap the tumor because they needed the tissue for the pathology, so how did he take the tissue out?
What do they do with the tissue they remove for pathology? Is it cremated? Do they have to treat tissue differently if it comes from someone whose religious beliefs prohibit cremation? Does the hospital have to bury those tissues?
Are brain stems stretchy? What are brain stem made of?
One answer I DID get from the surgeon is that the texture of a healthy brain is similar to firm tofu and that the parts of my brain that had calcified were probably similar in texture to crunchy bits mixed into the tofu.
And one answer I have learned from a friend who also had brain surgery is that the brain does not fill back up with brain. Professor Neil Hefferman still has a ping-pong-ball-size hole in his brain and the brain filled it up with brain juice!
On a differently serious note, the other questions I want to know are:
How do ever say thank you for giving you back your essential self and essential being? How do you ever have words that are enough for this gift?
How does a surgeon, like Dr. Johnson, go to work every day to perform actual miracles of grace and then go home to be human? The very thought of holding that contradiction is unfathomable to me.
Universal Design for Learning 