Recovery Process

February of 1999 saw me home recovering from surgery meant to fix my "Dain Bramage".

Before leaving the hospital for home, my wife shaved my poor misshapen zipper head, so that the left side matched the right. I never allowed anyone to take pictures of my fez monkey hairdo.

Now, it was time to start the recovery process, and determine if the craniotomy had helped or hurt me. I was so determined to get rid of the migraines, I would have done anything and did. Now, I had to pay the consequences. I'm not just talking about a bad haircut, either. Soon after returning home, I started to have small seizures, that the anti-seizure medication didn't effect.

I began having episodes where I would stop talking mid sentence, and stand or sit with a blank look on my face. Sometimes, it was like blacking out, where I would fall to the ground and wake up just in time to feel the floor meet my head.

I began having episodes where I would stop talking mid sentence, and stand or sit with a blank look on my face. Sometimes, it was like blacking out, where I would fall to the ground and wake up just in time to feel the floor meet my head. Sometimes I would even repeat myself, without even knowing I had done it. I would have aphasia and not be able to talk, although, I could write what I was thinking. I would lose motor skills on my left side, and could speak in sign language using my left hand, but not my right. My aphasia might happen several times a day, and my whole family got used to Daddy phasing out or blacking out in the middle of doing something.

Luckily for me, I did not have any problems while playing recreation league basketball. Unless you count getting hit with an elbow and driving home with a concussion. Unluckily for me, I found myself lying down in the shower too many times too many.

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I have recounted these stories of my 1999 brain surgery and recovery in order to give myself some peace, and maybe provide some information that would help someone else. I have not tried to recount every experience or discuss each decision as right or wrong. Everyone's life is their own, and each of us must make our own decisions. I did get nearly eight months, migraine free, but I don't think that I would make the same decision today knowing the other problems that were associated with the operation. Hind sight is 20/20.

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