Reflections on Brain Surgery

I am soon approaching the 5-month mark since my brain surgery.

20 weeks ago, I was wheeled into an operating theatre at 7:30 on a Tuesday morning to undergo the most significant operation of my life to date.

A lot of people have asked what that experience of brain surgery was like for me.

And I honestly can’t recall feeling anything much.

The one emotion I did have was around my parents. I remember seeing their faces as the doctors ran through everything that could go wrong during the surgery, and I remember not knowing how to make anything better for them. I reassured them that I would be fine with no knowledge myself that ‘being fine’ would be the case.

After they wheeled me past the doors, I remember feeling pretty numb. I had so many external stimuli which I was trying to process that I found myself too busy to feel anything. By the time I made it into the operating room, I had been descended upon by several student doctors who wanted to know everything about my symptoms, how we discovered the tumour, anything and everything they could think of to ask.

I’m so glad the student doctors were there. They prevented me from over-thinking what was about to happen and made me focus on all of their questions — so much so that I actually missed the part when they gave me…