Complex Numbers

And if your head explodes with dark forbodings too

Okay, yes, shitty of me to end the last entry with a cliffhanger like that.

Thing is, I don't want to go into too many details. It's not me; it's my wife, and while most of my readers don't know either of us, I always walk the line between oversharing and not sharing at all. And sometimes I lie or exaggerate just to throw people off - I am, after all, a fiction writer.

But my wife really did have brain surgery yesterday. The timing was unexpected - the surgery was planned, though not scheduled.

She's had epilepsy for many years, and her seizures - which aren't what you think of when you think of seizures, but are something far less obvious - had been mostly controlled through medication. Not completely, though, and often, they've had to change the medication.

The doctors - and I'm not exaggerating when I use the phrase "a brilliant team of neurologists and neurosurgeons;" keep in mind this is the same place that worked on Superman - had been talking about finding and excising the source of the seizures for some time, but they've never been able to localize it.

Until now.

Mid-month, she had surgery to implant electrodes on her brain. It took them a week to figure out that the electrodes were not exactly in the right place to find what they needed. So then they went in and placed more electrodes - a grid of them - against the surface of her brain. The purpose of all these electrodes is diagnostic; they use them to pinpoint the source of the seizures.

Now, here's where I have some bad news for cyberpunk fans: the human brain really, really hates having stuff in it other than thoughts, memories, and images of Hugh Laurie. Anything physical, like, say, electronics, and it starts to attack the interloping object(s) like a mother bear defending her cubs' honor.

This particular grid of electrodes was adjacent to the part of the brain that controls things like reading, talking, and being able to watch House. So those functions began to deteriorate, and she wasn't having the seizure that they needed to locate the source. They were getting ready to pull out the electrodes before they caused anything more than temporary dysfunction, when they got lucky and she had what they euphemistically call an "event." Only no one brings potluck.

That was when they decided that as long as they a) knew where they needed to cut and b) had to go back in to remove the electrodes anyway, they might as well take out the offending bit of gray matter.

With her unable to articulate her opinion on the subject, it fell to me to consent to the procedure. I told them I had half a mind to go ahead with it, but if they fucked up, they'd get a piece of my mind. No, actually, I decided that neurosurgeons have probably heard those puns more often than I've told the Scotsman joke, so I only thought about saying that.

So anyway, they did it. It remains to be seen how well it worked, but they had confidence in the procedure, saying it was low risk (any surgery carries a risk, but we take risks when we drive to work in the morning) and had a high probability for success. "Success" being defined as "fewer to no seizures."

There was a time today when I was worried, but she's better now. Couple more days in the hospital, they say, to recover more. Three surgeries in a month's time is more than most of us have to endure.

Really, in retrospect, the decision was a no-brainer.