On victory

The clinic had ended when I was told that there was one more person in the waiting area.? I walked over there, and sure enough there was this young man with his wife, a cap covering his scar, and a wide smile on his face.? I could have hugged him, but this was the hospital.? One cannot take bacteria for granted.? I have experienced first hand many times what those little critters can do.

It was one of those meetings that a neurosurgeon looks forward to.? This is a long and difficult road we travel, neurosurgery. Once in a while there is a victory like this, to savour.? And I think I must have made the review drag a bit longer than usual.? He was my last client for the day after all.

I first met Mr G 2 months previously, a broken man who had recently been referred to me by a younger colleague.? She had noticed that this young man had been admitted on and off for the past year with seizures and just kept on being admitted time after time… without a CT scan.? Mr G had been doing his bit, jumping from spiritual house to herbalist’s grove.? Nothing had changed.? Every new charlatan had a new medication, with new directions.? In the confused mix of instructions and pharmaceuticals he had lost direction, and hope, and was a pale reflection of himself by the time we sat opposite each other in the consulting room.? Our interaction that day seemed to turn things around… for a while.? At least for the first time he did not get a seizure in the next 2 weeks. He had a spring in his step the next time I saw him, but he also had purpose.? He had found out in the last visit that he had a tumour in his head, and he wanted it out.

And there was nothing this man wanted to hear about apart from surgery.? I described the location of the tumor to him.? If the brain was like a tall building, then this tumor was like a huge crab hanging from its ceiling, with multiple legs digging into the side wall, big enough to swallow a huge chandelier, killing all its light. The skull has the same volume as a coke litre bottle. This tumour was the size of a small tangerine. Additionally, neighbouring the tumour was the main blood vessel draining the brain.? To take the tumour out would mean digging with sharp instruments around this vessel, any wrong move, any small nick on the vessel would end the surgery, and potentially end his life.? He listened to everything and just smiled: he would be praying.? As far as he was concerned, he had been in darkness for a whole year, and now it seemed like there was daylight on the other side of a perilous river.? He was ready to cross.? And he had chosen me.

I went through his images with my colleague, strategising on how to make his crossing as safe as possible. When we had a plan, our anaesthesiologist checked him out to make sure he was fine.? The night before his surgery, I went over every step in my head, discussed with my colleague all the various scenarios ad nauseum.? Then the day arrived,? and the surgery began. And everything went like clockwork.? And the big draining vessel remained untouched.? We closed the wound after ensuring that the whole tumour was out, and the ache in my neck and shoulders after 8 hours of work was forgotten in the rush of relief, when he woke up without hesitation and then moved all his limbs.

In less than a week, he was back at home.? He came back for postoperative checks with his wife, walking with a spring in his step.? We have recently done his final imaging and proven that he does not need any other treatment. Very soon he will not need anti seizure medication.? And it looks like now I have a life time friend. We will see him every year for the next 5 years just to make sure all is well.

When neurosurgery brings victories, I cherish them.