I touched a brain

This week I started Neurosurgery. The team is a good one, although the chief resident is S-C-A-R-Y. Like the Suzer says, "She's a loose cannon." She likes to swear, and tells us "Ya'll need to curse more." She also calls people F-in morons; not to their faces or anything, but she gets frustrated easily. Paradoxically, she's a wonder with patients; and if I had to have neurosurgery, she'd be my pick. She really knows her shit.

On Monday, the first surgery I saw was a craniotomy for removal of a brain tumor. The tumor sits within the sac surrounding the brain, not the brain itself, but it's on the floor of the skull so you have to push the brain out of the way to get to it. So they go in and make an incision in the scalp, peel it down, do all that cauterizing and stuff. Then they drill two large burr holes into the skull, then connect the dots with a small saw. So you remove a "bone flap," or a piece of the skull that you'll pin back in at the end. Then you go thru the first layer of that sac---the dura mater; literally, "tough mother." Seriously! Tack that down and you got a part of the brain just sittin out. The chief said "come here and feel this." They give the patient a drug that pulls some fluid out of the brain cells so that it's more easily retracted. Plus you don't want a swollen brain, cuz your skull is rigid and that would compress the brain---NO GOOD! The brain wasn't like mush or anything, just soft and smooth. They got the tumor out the best they could, but there are lots of big vessels and nerves runnin in the same area. Anyway, the woman came back yesterday to the ER with mental status change---she didn't know her name or the year, but she knew where she was. I'm going in tomorrow to see how she's doing.

But yeah, umn, I touched a brain. And that is weird. And craniotomies are insane.