Christian Nolen, a man from Florida, US, recently underwent brain surgery to remove a tumour from his head while fully awake, in fact, he also played guitar.
When one thinks about major surgeries, people mostly opt to be out cold with the anaesthesia procedure, in which medicines are used to prevent pain during surgery and other procedures.
But sometimes they have to be conscious of the procedure. In medical terms, it is known as awake craniotomy, which is a type of procedure performed on the brain while the patient is awake and able to talk to the operative team.
US-based media reports mentioned that the neurological team from the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine wanted Nolen to play notes on the instrument.
They wanted to monitor the progress of the surgery as it is difficult for the doctors to get feedback when the patient is asleep during surgery.
The team said that playing the guitar would help them to evaluate and protect his manual dexterity while being as aggressive as possible in removing the tumour.
While speaking to Fox News Digital about the experience, Ricardo Komotar, MD, director of the brain tumour programme at Sylvester, said: “Christian was having issues with the left side of his body, particularly his left hand.”
“He was noticing issues with his dexterity that affected his ability to play the guitar,” Komotar added.
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This is incredible.
Playing a guitar during brain surgery.
Some news is amazing and this was a story I just had to post.
P.S. Did anyone see the movie Hannibal? It brought me back to a dreadful scene. I won’t go into detail, but it certainly made that scene plausible.… pic.twitter.com/ENHdso8voc
— Jennifer Coffindaffer (@CoffindafferFBI) January 16, 2024
Komotar noted that Nolen needed surgery to confirm the diagnosis and determine the type of tumour — as every tumour has different treatment options. they also removed the tumour to the extent possible.
Komotar added, “When a tumour is involving or near a critical part of the brain — something that controls the ability to speak or understand language or move — we want to do the surgery awake to continually monitor the patient, so you know if you start to violate normal brain functions.”
In an e-mail sent to Fox News Digital, Nolen said that at first it “didn’t seem real”.
“I’d only really heard of procedures of that nature being done in shows and movies. I felt like it was such a unique experience that I couldn’t pass up — especially with my motor skills being on the line,” he added.
