alt Hacker NewsI had a craniotomy in 1996. Similar thing. The back of my head looked a bit like his, except the scar looked more like a Blue Oyster Cult symbol (backwards question mark). I know they left a piece of the skull out, so I do have a hole in the head.
Took me a couple months to learn to walk and chew gum at the same time, but I ended up making a full recovery.
I remember being wheeled into the OR. It was odd, because there was a damn good chance I wouldn’t wake up. Or I’d spend my life in a wheelchair. The cerebellum is a bad place to have problems. I was actually pretty chill. Maybe they gave me Valium.
The recovery sucked. I spent a week in ICU (basically no sleep).
> Maybe they gave me Valium.
Versed/midazolam, almost certainly, was a part of the preoperative regimen.
I had jaw surgery and basically didn't sleep the night before, for obvious reasons, and they gave me a bit of versed in prep and had to wake me up on the table to put me under for anesthesia proper. Hey, not my fault the blankets were warm and the pillow was perfect.
It's a very useful medication both for anxiety, but also to reduce your seizure risk, which I imagine for cerebellar surgery was a definite factor.