After arriving in the Operating Room, I was transferred to a different table (bed). There were many people to lift me!! Oh, I forgot to mention that in the prep room there were two male nurses. They were asking me questions and answering them. Like"what happens to the holes put in my head for the Leads"? The answer: They are covered like with manhole covers!! That was very graphic or picturesque. A good image. Sometime a cat scan was taken of my brain, so it could be aligned with the MRI and let my surgeon, Dr. Doran, know exactly where to drill. Then Mark, the nurse,said he needed to insert a catheter, and I was okay with that. He explained that he had been a nurse for 25 years and was probably more comfortable than me with performing the procedure. It went fine, although it felt a little funny. But that's not nearly as uncomfortable as to what is about to happen. Thankfully the nurse anesthetist was there. I'm not sure what she put in my IV, but it wasn't nearly enough to dull the pain. Ordinarily the brain has no feeling, but out of 1 in 50 surgeries that Dr. Doran has done, only 2 were sensitive. And one of those two was me!! He wasn't able to get me completely numb with the local. I guess the periosteum is quite sensitive!
I was terribly uncomfortable, with that frame on my head and trying to relax when I actually felt very tense. The Nurse anesthetist, Sally, sat beside me and held my hands throughout the whole procedure! It was very comforting. She put a warm blanket on that puffed up every so often , put little pillows under my elbows, and kept telling me how great I was doing. Julie kept encouraging me also. It's just that I didn't feel as confident as they did. In fact the thought crossed my mind "Why am I doing this exactly?"
Mark, my nurse kept asking me questions about my family and I really did not feel like talking. But I answered him anyway. Dr. Doran kept saying he was sorry whenever I felt pain, but to focus on the outcome and how nice it will be to not have the tremors anymore.
There was someone in the room with a deep voice. Since I couldn't lift my head and look around, I asked who it was and it was the Medtronic guy who was setting the electrical wave on his machine to match up with what Dr. Doran was doing in my brain, I guess. (Medtronic is the name of the company that makes the particular machine for this procedure as well as other medical equipment for different medical procedures.) I was asked to hold up my right arm and let them know if I felt any tingling in my fingers or around my mouth.I never did feel any tingling around my mouth, only my fingers. So I told them when the tingling stopped.. Then I had to raise my right arm pretty high and touch my nose (which I had to find my nose under the frame), It was absolutely amazing that I could do it without any tremors whatsoever!! At this moment, I felt there was a glimmer of hope that maybe all this agony was worth it after all!
I never knew exactly when my scalp was opened or stitched up. But I did hear the drilling and felt the right side, which Dr. Doran couldn't get completely numb. The left side was fine.
Once the procedure was over, the scalp closed up, the frame removed, it was off to a room. I don't even think I went to recovery room. Dan was kept "up to date" with everything. Dan was the name also of one of the nurses who told my Dan when the right side was complete. All in all, The total time was 3 hours.
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