Well, my intent of edumacating (yes that’s a made-up word) readers on how a grown man deals with life post major brain surgery hasn’t been all that exciting enough to warrant a new post (just yet), so I’m filling a gap with some stuff that went on my other blogs that other friends and family have been keeping tabs on (http://www.spiritualslideshows.ws). Feel free to bury your nose in that blogpile if you really want the history of what’s going on medically with me. If you want the short version, here it is:

• The surgery was successful and now I’m missing a chunk of my right frontal lobe about the size of my fist (about the size of an orange–my fists are under the average size)
• Not only was the surgery successful, but there was too much fluid of the cerebrospinal variety being generated to compensate for the lost tissue and was causing massive killer headaches. A week later I went back to have a shunt installed and that was successful as well, so headaches no more. Injuries caused at the surgical locations where the shunt-work (ha-ha sort of rhymes with stunt-work) was performed now remain as my #1 enemies at this point in time. They aren’t bad but I’m learning to live with them. Soon they will be gone
• Doctor follow-up visits have been positive and further treatments will include radiation but NOT chemo-therapy–thank goodness.
• I’m excited about an upcoming visit to a neuro-psychologist this week. They will help determine what I’m capable of and will hopefully affix a time for me to be able to return to work and resume my normal duties. However, in MY humble, unprofessional opinion, my brain has already been re-wiring itself since it’s been receiving sensory input. Obviously I can still operate a computer because I’m updating my websites, I can hold a conversation and hopefully still sound intelligent (I think so), and I haven’t forgotten how to write code or manipulate media which is important for my profession. What I suppose might be worrisome is my ability to stay on task given longer periods of time sitting down at a desk job, design and architecht software the way I’m used to, and meeting my personal goals of accomplishing helping people learn some of the things I’ve learned over the years so they can be self-sufficient in their approach to computing.

  Now the really exciting thing here is (and I’m not blushing too much hopefully when I say this) is that if I’m able to do all this with part of my brain missing, then that points to lots and LOTS of potential for individuals who have all of their brain tissue intact. As soon as I have my hands on the scans of my brain I’ll post them so that the world can see what I’m missing and what I’m now going to be dealing with for the rest of my life. My neurosurgeon might even let me observe a future brain surgery if I meet the right sort of criteria. That would be WAY cool. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

I’ve revised the look and feel of this website once again for a very important reason which I’ll get to later. If there’s anyone interested in learning and brain theories you will likely appreciate the ideology behind what I’m about to do. Stay tuned…