Introducing Dan, Dan The Surgery Man

Here is what you do when you have nothing interesting to post. You find someone else interesting and point folks to their blog. You may have noticed the new link to your right (my left). It is the blog tracking the recovery of my dear old friend Dan who, in the prime of life, suddenly found his brain host to an aneurysm. The story of his hand-to-hand combat for survival is enthralling, but the story of how this insipid symbiote was discovered will leave you amazed.

Before you go dashing off to this new blog, read the following, the text of two emails received from Dan in mid-April, reprinted here with no editing (including the misspelling of aneurysm), except to remove some identifying information:


Some of you hear from me quite frequently, some of you rarely hear from me, others of you hear about what is happening with us from Kathy...but in any case....whomever you may be....I wanted to bring you up to speed on the interesting Spring my family has been experiencing mostly because of my career and my genetic composition. I apologize if some of this is old news to some of you; others of you are hearing this first hand, and I apologize for not letting you know sooner.

So...first....the "bus" incident....You'd think after 30 years of school field trips, vacations and "...stay in your seats until the ______ stops moving..." ...you'd just think someone would get it! Well, I got it...

We were calmly returning from our annual 5th grade pilgrimage to our state capital on Friday, March 30, moving at a missile-like 3 mph, in the Elementary School parking lot about 100 feet from where we would unload the kids, when I thought to myself, "Self, why don't you get the DVD out of the player, and position yourself to say a few last words of thanks to the kids, chaperones and driver before we disembark?" Smugly, I set about doing just this, (after all I've been doing this for 30 years!), when apparently a parent decided it would be a good day to pull out in front of a loaded 18-wheel tour bus. The bus driver slammed on his brakes and before I could do anything, I was airborne in the direction of the windshield, and the drivers console 4-feet below me. All I could think was, "Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap...this is gonna hurt"...and I was right. I busted the windshield with my shoulder or something, and then fell flat on my back onto the console, bending the wrong way, and knocking the wind out of myself...and doing some righteous damage to said console in the process.

By the time I could speak again, someone had already called 911, and the troops were on the way. (I want you to know that you would have been proud of the way I did not use any inappropriate language in front of the children and parents, even though I was confident there was a new GPS device installed in my left kidney) Long story a little shorter, the medics arrived and determined that neither was I dead, bleeding, or in danger of paralysis, so they asked me to get up and walk into the infirmary with them, which I did. (It was either that or watch as 35 fifth graders exited over my body which was now bridging the gap between the aisle and the top of the stairway.) Once in the infirmary they did some more prodding and questioning to determine that I was still not dead, etc. Strapping me onto a backboard, they then proceeded to haul my mangled carcass to Valley Medical Center where I spent the remainder of the evening being examined by human an d inhuman medical experts.

It was determined that the only fracture I had was "fairly minor". I cracked one of the little "rib wannabes" on one of the lower vertebrae. (Think of a vertebrae with tiny little wings...one of the wings has a crack in it.) So the prognosis is good, it's just that the muscles haven't got the word yet. I was released from the hospital that evening (Friday 3/30) These muscles are still spasming and asking "why?" So, I am on some friendly medicines, and I am about to receive physical therapy. I visited an orthopedic doc last Thursday, and he said I'd pretty much be out of the woods in two weeks or so, and be good to go for our big state testing, the week after Spring Break. (oh joy)

Now...Chapter 2...because I knocked out a windshield, the doctor wanted to be sure my brain was intact, so they did a CT scan of my cranium. In the process they found a brain aneurism, unrelated to the trauma of the day, and I've been following up on that as well. My primary care doc doesn't think it is too serious, in fact he thought I was quite lucky that this was discovered. He wanted to be sure it was really there, so he had an MRI done this last Thursday. I survived the MRI, but it did confirm that there is indeed an aneurism there. So, kind of a second layer to my concern that I don't know what to think about as of yet.

It's sort of a good news/bad news scenario. The good news is that my back is really improving nicely, and I'm counting on being back at school on Monday. The bad news is that the MRI showed a particularly difficult sort of aneurism. My primary doc had led me to believe that I had several options: 1.) We could just watch it and see if it got worse...it's pretty small, he said. 2.) It could be treated with "gamma/knife radiation". And although this appealed to me because of the cool name as much as anything...it turned out to not be an option either. 3.) Option 3 involved ..."a more invasive" form of treatment. (note to self: words you never want to hear from your doctor). Apparently because the aneurism is right at a point where another artery branches off the only to deal with it is to "manually" go in and clamp the aneurism off. It is imperative to do this before the aneurism bursts.

In other words, I am seeing a brain surgeon so that he can do surgery on my brain. I'll try to keep the graphic descriptions to a minimum here, but basically my neurosurgeon will need to get to the aneurism which is on the right side of my head, find the 5mm aneurism and clamp it off, so it is no further problem. Data shows that not doing this is a very bad idea. However data shows that doing it is hardly risk free, either. He would like me to do this sometime in the next 3 months. It will involve about a 1/2 day of surgery, 3-4 days in the hospital, and then about a 4-week recovery period at home with Chloe, our yellow lab.

Honestly, this is a little scary for Kathy, the kids and myself. We would really appreciate your prayers. Just the little things right now are a little puzzling to all of us. When is the right time to do this? Is this doctor any good? Should we get another opinion? Is this going to determine that I need to retire now? Why me? On and on... It is showing me that while our lives may seem stable, things can occur to knock them off balance rather quickly. We have a wonderful network of supporting family and of other friends at work, in our neighborhood, and at church. Thank you all for your support and encouragement as we got through Chapter 1. We'll keep you posted on Chapter 2.

Pretty exciting, huh? Okay - now you can go to the DDTSM blog!