Let me introduce you to your team

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It was very early Aug. 22. My cousin, Brenda, and my granddaughter, Shyann, got up long before daylight to drive me to Indianapolis for surgery.

It was a surgery first proposed to me nearly eight months earlier and to which I said: “No way. Never.”

During the previous two years, symptoms that had long been diagnosed as a familial tremor and later essential tremor seemed to be worsening at rapid speed.

Tremors that I often considered a nuisance but something I could live with were now affecting my walk, my speech, sleep, writing and thinking.

The tremors were transitioning to Parkinson’s Disease.

I knew a lot about that, as my mom was diagnosed with it a bit earlier in her life.

They talked to her about the same surgery nearly 20 years ago. She said no and meant it. She wasn’t going to have someone do what the surgery required: drilling a hole into her brain.

As I pondered my reality over the next few years and did as much research as I could on this operation as possible, I began to change my mind and eventually decided to have it done.

Now I was headed for the operating room to meet the team that would install a device for DBS (deep brain stimulation). The device will produce electrical impulses that help regulate irregular impulses.

The neurosurgeon stepped up to say hello again. Then there was the anesthesiologist who would be doing a general anesthetic a little less than halfway through the procedure. Another would be doing a local for my skull so they could drill on the left side of my brain to install the wires and device that would give more control on the right side of my body, which is my dominant side.

The next person to step up was a technician. He would be guiding me through a series of commands to ensure that the drilling was in the right place.

That’s actually the part that had me saying “never” when they proposed the implant. I wouldn’t be able to feel the drilling, but I would be able to hear it as they dove into my brain.

I also was hesitant about the vice-like equipment used to hold my head perfectly still while they worked.

Little by little I found myself being more intrigued by this miracle of modern-day medicine than fearful of the sound of drilling.

“I wish I could see better,” I told the technician during the procedure.

At one point I thought they surely had drilled quite enough.

“There’s no gold in there, so you can stop any time — but, just in case you do strike gold, remember it’s mine.”

The technician laughed at that, then began guiding me.

First I had to focus on him, which was a little difficult because I was sure one of us was moving; then reach my right hand out and touch my finger to his finger. Touch my finger to my nose. Touch his finger again.

He followed with a series of three words somewhat like a tongue twister with all three starting with an S.

The last word was Savannah, and I can’t recall the other two words, but I knew there were no expletives. That seemed important as I relived this ordeal in my mind during the following days.

About an hour and a half into the surgery, the anesthesiologist began the general anesthetic, and I don’t remember much more until I was in my room.

During preliminary talks about DBS, I also asked repeatedly about the security of my device.

“Do I need virus or malware protection?”

It seemed a perfectly logical question to me, since I eventually would be programmed — or at least the device would be.

I don’t think people were taking me seriously as the day of surgery approached, or maybe they just didn’t know the answer.

The technician who was in surgery as well as another who met with me prior to surgery did. During the next three weeks I will have follow-up visits with the neurosurgeon and in the third week will meet with a neurologist in Anderson.

Her specialty is programming the device. She will again go over the security issues — after all, I wouldn’t want the Russians to see what I’m thinking, I joked.

For the next two weeks I would be healing from the surgery.

In addition to the drilling, there was a one-inch incision on the left side of my chest above my heart. There’s the device that will stimulate my brain. Lead wires are also fed through an area behind my left ear to attach to the drilling site.

I was concerned about pain management during and following the implantation also. I was insistent I didn’t want anything that could lead to addiction, even for a very short period of time. I have been doing well on Tylenol.

The hairdo is a little harder to deal with. All have assured me it will grow back quickly. In the meantime, there are such unusual styles out there, I may just put in purple or electric blue highlights.

(The nursing staff also presented me with a zip-lock bag containing my hair — maybe in case I want to glue it back on?)

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