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22 year old nervous about brain surgery
Tue, 09/27/2011 - 11:38Hi, this is my first post
I'm 22 and have had partial complex seizures my whole life. I've recently been looking into surgery now that I've graduated college and want to live out on my own and can't drive. Over the past 6 months I've had a variety of tests that I'm sure many of you have had...EEG's, PET scans, MRI's etc..and those were just to locate the seizure activity.
I met with a neurosurgeon and he told me that through the tests they couldn't exactly locate where my seizures were coming from, but that it was the right side of the brain, and most likely it was the parietal lobe. They want to do 4 surgeries in a matter of 6 months, the first of which includes putting a GRID in my brain to possibly pinpoint exactly where my seizures are coming from. I guess I would just like to know if any of you have experience with this or have had this surgery before. I'm nervous trying to make a decision because of the risks..swelling of the brain, loss of cognitive function afterwards etc...I mean is it worth the 50/50 chance of being seizure free?
Re: 22 year old nervous about brain surgery
Submitted by brydy23 on Mon, 2011-11-21 - 14:05
Hi guys, thank you so much for the feedback. I'm hopeful from your experience that they might be able to figure out what part of the brain my seizures are originating if I do the grid surgery. I'm just nervous as Dynasty said, that I'll lose some sort of function, whether it be cognitive or physical. I really want to get on with my life and find a job because I just graduated, but at the same time having seizures is limiting me to jobs I want and living on my own without transportation. If I did commit to surgery it would probably take out 6 months to a year of my time. I'm still deciding on whether I'd like to do it now, but from what it sounds like it is definitely worth the time. One question, how long was the recovery time in your experience?