Patient plays guitar as doctors remove his brain tumor
WeirdNews
It’s kind of an insane feeling
(Web Desk) - A Florida man continued to strum his guitar during brain surgery to remove a tumor, in a bold bid by doctors to perform the surgery without harming his motor skills.
Christian Nolen, a professional guitarist, received a craniotomy — a surgical procedure in which a portion of the skull is temporarily removed — to remove a brain tumor.
He told WSVN Miami that he first knew something was wrong after he lost feeling on his left side from his waist up.
Nolen was diagnosed with having a glioma, a type of tumor, of his frontal lobe. He was scheduled for surgery at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine to remove it 10 days later.
This is the part of the brain responsible for muscle movements, along with other cognitive functions.
Doctors wanted to remove Nolen’s tumor to restore brain function. However, these types of surgery carry dangers. If they remove too much mass, they could harm the patient’s dexterity permanently.
To avoid this, doctors will have a patient receive the surgery while awake and performing a task, so they can be alerted if anything goes wrong.
"When a tumor is involving or near a critical part of the brain — something that controls the ability to speak or understand language or move — we want to do the surgery awake to continually monitor the patient, so you know if you start to violate normal brain functions," Ricardo Komotar, M.D., who oversees brain surgeries at the Miami center, told Fox News.
The entire operation took 2 hours. Nolen was put asleep at the start of surgery, but awakened for key parts of the surgery. During these periods, he strummed his guitar.
“It was just like out of this world, like, to just wake up and have people actively working inside of your head. It’s kind of an insane feeling,” Nolen told WSVN.
Tunes he played during surgery included a few favorites from bands such as System of a Down and Deftones.
“Having the patient awake and playing guitar while we take out the tumor allows us to be as aggressive as possible, yet still maintain his quality of life and his manual dexterity,” Dr. Komotar explained.
“Awake craniotomy,” as the practice is called, is a commonly performed procedure for these types of illnesses.
Previous research finds that patients who have the operation while awake, rather than under anesthesia, are less likely to experience neurological issues after the surgery and usually require less recovery time at the hospital.
