Operation: Operation

I woke up on my own accord, before the nurse came to get me out of bed.

I'd slept well, considering the din the old man down the way had been making, randomly shouting at nurses and shadows all night. 'Go AWAY, be off with ya!' on an endless loop, interspersed with random swearing and racially-tinged provocations. In hindsight, the bloke was obviously in pain or troubled or both, but I didn't like him very much.

I had previously noticed that a patient who'd had surgery a few days before had been given some purple liquid with which to wash his head with. I didn't mention this to the nurse, as I presumed that if I needed to do anything special she would tell me.

I hadn't seen my dad for a couple of weeks before the operation so I replied to a text that he'd sent me that morning. Helen and I had spoken about not speaking to each other that morning, which seems as though it would be easy enough to achieve but I had to try hard not to contact her.

I am naturally inclined (some would say unnaturally clingy) to tell Helen that I love her when I go round the corner to get some milk, so to not call or text her before the operation felt weird, but I think it was beneficial for us as it could've been a bit dramatic and upsetting for a couple of wimps like us.

After a few moments deliberating, I pulled myself together.

One of the nurses came round to do the usual tests, and I asked if I should have a shower, which I subsequently did.

Turns out that purple stuff was a super-duper antibacterial shampoo that would make my head clean enough to cut open. Apparently Head and Shoulders wasn't going to cut it. 

So, when my surgeon came to speak to me, I got told to go and scrub the millimetre long stubble that made up my hairdo.

I had met my surgeon a few times before. His name was Mr McEvoy and he is a very mollifying man. He looks and sounds slightly like Derek Acorah, that scouser who says he can talk to ghosts, but is infinitely more trustworthy.

He also has quite small hands, which had bothered me in the run up to the operation - but when I shook his paw that morning I decided it was better that he had Beadle-dexterity than Lennox Lewis-style mitts poking around in there.

He asked if I had any questions and I double-checked with him that I wouldn't be awake - having still not had this confirmed - where the incision would be, what the percentage chances were for the surgery to be a complete success and also for what could be considered an utter fuck up. Here's a list of some of the things that could go wrong:

1. Just the same as with any surgery, I could have a bad reaction to the general anaesthetic and go into cardiac arrest, or have breathing complications or stop breathing all together
2. Infection in the brain, wound or skull
3. Blood clot or bleeding on the brain
4. Brain swelling
5. Stroke
6. Coma
7. Seizures [Seizures? Pah! I shit 'em.]
8. Short-term problems with speech, memory, muscle weakness, balance, vision, coordination and other functions
9. As above, but long-term or lifelong
10. Locked-in syndrome 

We didn't mention that last one. Locked-in syndrome. Fucking hell. Just take the crystal and head for the dome, I'd rather be dead.

Blindness and paralysis being my two worst fears in life, I was elated to hear they were still nestled right at the top of the list. 

He bid me adieu, and I wished him good luck. Not entirely sure this was appropriate but it filled an awkward silence. To be honest I was just relieved he didn't ask me if there was anyone on 'the other side' that I wanted to speak to.

I hadn't really felt nervous, but I don't think I'd allowed myself to take on the seriousness of the situation.

Having sheep-dipped my head and put my gown on (the right way round and everything), a young nurse came and took me down to have my last MRI scan before surgery, so they could map exactly where my tumour was.

When we got down there, the entire ward was empty apart from a receptionist. This felt very odd as I had been there many times before and it was usually a hive of activity.

The nurse went through to the MRI department, but was halted just on the other side of the door that she'd left me by. I could hear her conversation with a doctor, who asked if she had my notes.

She didn't. Neither did he. Nor did the receptionist. 

The doctor bellowed that she should 'know your fucking patients better' and smashed through the doors, throwing me a smile - obviously not realising how loud he'd just been - and stormed off somewhere.

None of this was filling me with confidence.

Eventually though, my notes were found (someone had been using them to rest on when they were doing the Metro Sudoku, or something) and I was wheeled into a small room that had the i-MRI machine in it. It looked as though it was a little fireplace, or at least that's how I remember it - much smaller than I thought everything was going to be.

Lying down, looking like Private Pile, they slipped the needle into my hand. 

Unlike the previous times that I'd been under general anaesthetic, they didn't ask me to count down from twenty, they didn't ask me anything. The entire thing was played out in an eery silence.

It must have worked though, I didn't even feel them pummel me with the bars of soap. 

Then over the course of about ten hours, they scanned me, cut me open, scooped, sliced and chopped, scanned me again, and repeated that process until they got hungry. Or had a fag. Or thought they'd done as much as they could to remove my brain tumour and save my life, one of those.

Did I want the good news or the bad news?

Despite the title of the last post, I wrote this before the operation too, it just makes a little more sense to have it here. The addendum at the end was written two weeks after the op, it may shed a little light on things. 

Jumping a few months ahead now, into May, I'd settled into my new job - and with hardly any mention of erections (or lack thereof) at all. I'd met with Dr Kelso a fair few times and I eventually had my first MRI scan.

(Or, at least, my first as an adult. I'd actually had one before when I had an unexplained growth on my hip. Never did work out what that was...)

Anyway, I had the MRI at four in the afternoon of Saturday 7 May. It was this picture of my brain that confirmed the bad news. I had a brain tumour.

Bum.

Subsequently, I had various other MRIs to try and pinpoint exactly where the tumour was, and if possible, to determine what sort of tumour it was. What was certain, however, is it was this little bastard sitting in my right temporal lobe that was causing the focal epilepsy. What wasn't quite as clear was whether it was a 'low-grade glioma' or a 'DNET'.

These two terms didn't mean anything to me at the time and, despite numerous explanations, don't mean a great deal to me now, three days before they're going to try and take it out.

Essentially, a low-grade glioma holds the possibility of turning into a high-grade glioma, which could cause more significant problems. A DNET, on the other hand, is a tumour that could have been in my head for a long time indeed, perhaps even since I was a foetus. I can't remember having it then, though.

During this consultation time I started a drug trial, which helped to make this new development interesting on a different level. Plus, philanthropic to the end, I had the feeling that it might actually help someone at the end of it. 

It also meant that I would have slightly more regular contact with Dr Kelso and, once I was part of the trial, a nurse called Ceri who offered a great deal of support.

Again I feel very grateful that, along with Helen, I also had these people offering me care at a time that my simple curiosity in my condition wouldn't quite have masked my utter dismay.

I was in a double-blind trial (meaning no one knew what I was taking, not even the people leading the study) whereby I took these great big fuck-off pills that were either a generic drug that most people are given when first diagnosed, or this new type of drug that is being developed by a Portuguese company.

Honestly, these pills were the size of the battleships in that game where you have to guess where the other person's naval complement is and torpedo them by calling out a grid reference. Can't remember what it's called.

By this time I'd had a few tonic clonic seizures, and a few more minor seizures where I didn't lose consciousness, and I felt as though I was gaining some sort of control on the situation.

I had also stopped drinking for a few months, no small feat for someone who has regularly been told that alcohol is 'the only thing that you get excited about', that I 'hide all emotions within a pint glass' and that I am, 'frankly boring without it.'

Addendum
I'm addendumming this little section because now, with '99.5% certainty', I can say that the tumour that I have (or perhaps had, I find out in a few days) is a DNET. That means that if the surgery - which the surgeon's registrar has told me went well - has left a bit of the tumour still in my head, it shouldn't get any bigger or regrow. Which is the good news mentioned at the top.

Addendum to the addendum
I had another MRI on 12 October to find out what's going on. I'm still waiting to hear from the hospital. In other news, my right cheek has gone numb and when I touch my top lip I can feel it in my right eyelid. Not ideal, but on the bright side it's better than being stabbed repeatedly in the face.