Blood & Guts

Tonight's SBS viewing was Blood & Guts: A History of Surgery - The Heart, and Operation Live: Brain Surgery. Coincidently, that is an exact reversal of last week. In the live brain surgery the patient was having a tumor removed and was awake during the surgery. I've seen this before in a documentary called The English Surgeon. The reason the patient is awake during the surgery is because the surgical team need to interact with him/her to prevent permanently damaging their speech/motor/comprehension skills. They use an electric probe to stimulate the area where they want to cut before they cut it to check. In tonight's show it was the speech lobe which they suspected could be affected and they had the patient counting out loud while they prodded around the area with the probe. A couple of times he actually did suddenly stop speaking. That must have been really scary for the patient. In the other movie they carried on a conversation with the patient and had him moving his arms and legs too. There are no pain sensors in the brain itself but of course for the skull they need to use local anesthetic. The most horrific bit is that they used an electric saw and drill to open the skull and the patient can hear it and feel the vibration! I've watched a lot of medical and surgical docos in the last 12 months, partly because it's interesting but also to desenstise myself. Now I'm at the stage where I can easily eat a (meaty)dinner while watching this stuff and I don't feel any queasiness or anything.