Here we go - day 6

The day is finally here. It's 545am and I've been given a gown and towel and told to have a shower.
Then its off for my lobotomy... I mean surgery.
Still very nervous as now I have some idea what to expect I have an idea of what I might feel like tomorrow.
I got woken up about midnight to go for a CT scan which was quick and painless. So far the staff here have been pretty awesome, fast and responsive.

Anyway, showers free now. No phones in the high dependency unit where I'm heading after surgery but I'll endeavour to get back online asap.

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Answers at last - day 5

I got to see the surgeons registrar today who was able to answer all my questions.

Looks like surgery is going to take around 4 hours. They'll remove a chunk of skull, cut through the arachnoid membrane, shift the major vein aside, cut through a section of the corpus callosum and then remove my cyst. Then they'll patch me up, put two titanium plates in my skull and wake me up.

All going according to plan I can expect to wake up with a headache, and feel pretty dazed. He suggests I should be off work for around a month but only time will tell. I'm hoping I recover faster than this, too many things to do!
The good news is that should everything go to plan I can go to kiwicon. Flying shouldn't be an issue.

Worst case scenario I have a stroke or something similar but this is supposedly very unlikely. I may also experience some short term memory problems. However, these may only be noticeable in testing rather than to me directly. Still, I'm hoping everything goes well, not keen on experiencing brain damage firsthand.

Still, tomorrow morning, around 8, I'll be headed for surgery. Wish me luck. I'll try to keep posting if I'm able to concentrate long enough.

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Postponed - Day 5

I made it to the hospital, on time, cheerful and ready on Tuesday afternoon. Unfortunately, shortly after checking in, getting a wristband and my paperwork, I received a phone call. To advise me that my surgery had been postponed. I later found out this was due to an accute case coming in, presumably an emergency of some sort.

As my surgery is non-urgent I can be bumped from the my position relatively easily.

Upon returning home I was told by the schedulers to wait for a phone call the next day as to when I might go again. Bright and early the next morning, Wednesday, I received said phone call. "Wait and see" was the message I was given, go back to work and see what happens.

So I made it to work this morning despite going to the end of year function at work the night before. And did my usual shifts and dealt with staff and customers. Only to receive another call at half past 12. "Be here by 3, they want to operate tomorrow". It's now half past 1 and I've made it home, packed my bags and had a shower. The hospital is thankfully only 5-10 minutes from my house so this should be fairly easy.

Still, it's pretty frustrating to be cancelled, then told to go back to work expecting to get a call in a week or a month to advise and then suddenly be dragged back in unprepared. Of course, this is the public system so I'm not paying a cent, something that I'm VERY VERY grateful for. And I understand why these scheduling issues occur and that nothing can be done. But I'm frustrated none the less.

Anyway, I'll be heading in within the next hour or so and hopefully continue to update via the magic of internetsuperphone. Provided I manage to get credit on it and don't forget my charger. We shall see!

2 days out - Questions

Tomorrow I go into the hospital to prep for surgery on Wednesday.

I have a number of questions I've been unable to find satisfactory answers to online so I figured I'd post them here and then come back once I had an answer from the surgeon tomorrow.

1. What side effects can I expect after surgery?

2. Will my memory be affected short or long term if everything goes according to plan?
One of the potential complications is memory impairment. What about if there're no complications?

3. Will I be able to read books or watch TV or should I avoid concentrating on things for a while?
I've read around the place that concentrating after neurosurgery can be very difficult.

4. How soon will I be able to fly?
I'm planning on going to Kiwicon in Wellington at the end of November so I'd love to be able to fly down for it.

5. Will I be in intensive care afterward or will I be awake immediately after?

3 days out

I'm three days away from my first and hopefully only brain surgery.

All going according to plan I'll be having surgery at some point during the day on the 27th of October.

I figure I should begin with some background as to what's happening. A few years ago, coming back from a party, I fell off my skateboard and got a fairly serious concussion which landed me in hospital. As part of that I ended up getting a CT scan to make sure nothing particularly major had occurred. During the CT scan the hospital found a colloid cyst (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colloid_cyst) between the 3rd and 4th ventricles in my brain.

For the last 2-3 years I've been having MRI scans on a semi regular basis (every 6-9 months) to see if the cyst was getting any bigger. If it got any larger it had the potential to cause hydrocephaly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrocephalus) leading to permanent damage. This is because it would have blocked the flow of cerebro-spinal fluid between the 3rd and 4th ventricle.

A few months ago I was booked in with the neurospecialist who was dealing with my case. After a long discussion he suggested that sooner rather than later was the time to have it out. He specifically said that if I was 50 he wouldn't have bothered but as I'm 23 that now was the time to have it out. I don't want to collapse on vacation or some remote village in Europe...
There are some potential risks involved certainly, a 3% chance of unspecified complications, presumably memory issues given that the cyst sits near the amygdala and the foramen of Munro which are both involved in short term memory processing.

However, leaving it in is another 3% risk of it swelling and causing issues. In which case I'd have to get surgery to have it out anyway, another 3%. If I remember highschool maths rightly you multiply the percentages in this case and end up with 9% chance of serious complications. So I'd rather have it out now than risk it causing serious damage at some unspecified date down the track.

Still, I'm pretty nervous. I figured I'd write this all down since I wasn't able to find any particularly useful resources online. Hopefully other people will read it and get a better idea of what it's like.
I plan to continue posting after surgery, assuming I'm able to concentrate enough to write or that there haven't been any serious complications.

If you have any questions please post them in the comments and I'll do my best to answer them.