Today: angiogram with Wada and embolization

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Given that for more than 30 years I haven't left the care of a hospital without taking a staph infection with me, I head into today's events double scrubbed, first with a 10 percent solution of bleach and then with some skin dissolving mixture they gave me to use. Since staph lives on your skin and dives deep when there are breaks in it, I'm hoping that the cleansing will get me safely through today and tomorrow.

The procedures today are cerebral angiogram with Wada and embolization. I'll have a local anesthesia and they will thread a catheter up through my groin, inject dye into one side of my brain and shout commands at me: Sit! Speak! Roll over! The dye allows the doctor to see the blood vessels and to identify which side of the brain controls speech and memory. Then they repeat the procedure for the other side of the brain, assuming they find one. 

Embolization shuts off the blood vessels to the tumor, and I'll be asleep when they do that.

After I get off the operating table, I have to lie flat for six hours to make sure I don't spring a leak. They'll keep me overnight and I will get released Friday, heading for the nearest place that serves a strong double espresso.

The picture above is me at the end of the McClinchey Mile bike ride. My photographer (a generous description) and I did 47 miles in the sunshine on Saturday, rolling up and down the hills from Arlington to Granite Falls to Machias and then back to Arlington. Probably my last ride for a while, but I have another one lined up in May that is a fundraiser for Diabetes research. More on that later -- hey, it's the price of admission here.

One more thing: I owe a lot to Naomi Ishisaka, who had this surgery about a year ago and has been generous with her time and information about what I should expect. Naomi worked as a copy editor at The Seattle Times, where I worked for 28 years, and she has been a much better researcher on meningiomas than I. Check her blog for more information. 

Naomi also recommends "It's Just Benign," which has information that scares the pee out of me, which I can't afford to have happen today while I am lying flat on my back for six hours.

Here we go,

-- John B.