Left Temporal Lobectomy

Hello. My husband has decided to go forward in Nov with Left TL surgery. I was wondering if you ever decided to move forward and have the surgery. I have come across a lot of success stories but I am still scared to death for him and our family.

I am 24 and have had left temporal lobe epilepsy since I was 12. It was under control with meds until I went to college. Throughout college it became intractable; I went through tegrotal, carbatrol, trileptal, keppra, zonagran, lamictal, vimpat, and onfi, but none worked. So my neurologist at Johns Hopkins Hospital suggested surgery. I had the surgery 7 months ago and have been seizure free since. I attend epilepsy surgery conference weekly at a hospital where I work and I can tell you that those neurologists go to great lengths to ensure the surgery they are doing is the best option. Before someone is considered a surgical candidate they must go through a battery of exams (24-hour EEG and video monitoring, neuropsych test, Wada test, sometimes fMRI, PET scan CT scan, the list goes on depending on the patient). The surgery and the tests the patient undergoes is unique to every person depending on the cause of the patient's epilepsy if they can find one and a lot of other factors. If your neurologist suggested a one stage full out temporal lobectomy then maybe get a second opinion if you are nervous about it (it seems to me that only happens if the patient is really young or it is on the non-dominant side of the brain)? If your neurologist suggested a two stage surgery with grids and strips then you don't need to worry so much. That means they are going to find exactly where the seizures are coming from as well as where your speech, memory, etc comes from and determine if the surgery is in your best interest. That's what I did and they found that my speech was close to where my seizures were coming from, so they left that bit in. My speech and memory are the same if not better than they were before the surgery. I was on 3 meds before the surgery, 2 after, now working down to just 1. You have every right to be scared, after all it is your brain. I was terrified. But keep in mind that it is your neurologist's job to make sure you have the best outcome and he/she is an expert. Also, keep in mind that they aren't just going to go in there and take it out; you will have to go through a bunch of tests first to make sure its a viable option. Neurologists are finding that surgery for medically intractable temporal lobe epilepsy is actually very successful; obviously its not for everyone and its hard to say without knowing the details of your epilepsy. You should definitely read about it. Hope that helps, and best of luck!