Drs. Chen and Lopez wanted to run an EEG to make sure that the strange electrical tingling and humming I’ve been experiencing recently wasn’t seizure activity but just, as Dr. Lopez explained, my brain “settling.” What I learned today:

• The nifty guy in Neurophysiology who ran the EEG was named John. He was the perfect person to run the EEG, because he knows something about brain injuries. The day before he turned 21, he crashed his dirt bike and broke his skull in many places, sort of like Humpty Dumpty. And he is fine. Kids, a good job, the works. I figured if he was fine, I could be fine, too.
• John knew my head felt sore. And he knew around the scar my scalp felt weird, almost as if when I touched it, I wasn’t touching my head at all. John reminded me that when nerves heal they do so slowly, at like 1mm/year. So I guess my head will feel funny for a while longer.
• When I agreed to the surgery, we didn’t have time to discuss the particulars. Dr. Chen told us the AVM was in the “speech area” of my brain. By the location and by something an ER nurse mentioned as I was being wheeled to the ICU, I guessed the AVM was somewhere around the Wernicke’s area and the amygdala (maybe between?). I never had a chance to really answer my questions (partially because we were in a bit of a rush to just fix the AVM and get it over with before it caused any more problems, and partially because at the hospital I wasn’t able to communicate very well, anyway). John’s paperwork seemed to have support my hunch, however. When we left the Neurophysiology Department, I punched Matt on the arm. “I told you!” I said. “Wernicke’s!” I get frustrated when I can’t find a word like, say, “washing machine,” but I was happy that I could remember a word like Wernicke’s.
• I learned a little more about Dr. Lopez. I liked Dr. Lopez immediately because he reminded me of John Robles. John Robles was Jamie Robles’ brother, and the three of us were in a lot of the same classes in elementary and middle school. John was always teasing Jamie, and getting in trouble. When he was getting ready to play a joke or being downright naughty, he would hold his head high, and look down at us over his nose, with a twitch in his smile. Dr. Lopez standing over my hospital bed, with a hint of smile on his mouth, I would think of John Robles, and want to laugh, and feel that whoever Dr. Lopez was, this doctor that I didn’t even choose but instead chose me . . . he at least felt familiar and like an old friend. So, anyway, John (from Neurophysiology) told me that Dr. Lopez was known as an “intensivist.” His genius was in taking critically sick patients–like stroke or heart attack patients–and using novel treatments to save their lives. Now I like Dr. Lopez even more.
• John pointed out that the healing process in the brain can create feelings of weird phenomena like this: an electrician who works on a house gets to turn off the power first. The brain can’t do that (with no electricity in your brain, you’re dead, unfortunately), so it’s very busy plugging and unplugging new connections, and a few sparks happen here and there as a result. But the weird phenomena–as yucky-feeling as it is–mean the brain’s trying to heal itself. So tingle and buzz away, little brain.

Completed 8 March 2007.