What would be your reaction if your doctor asked you to play guitar while they performed surgery on your brain? It doesn’t sound quite appropriate. But that’s exactly what happened to Christian Nolen, a professional musician from Florida who was diagnosed with a brain tumor and underwent a craniotomy.
Nolen’s tumor appeared on his right frontal lobe, a region in the brain that controls the movement of body parts on the left side. This part is also linked to a person’s speaking ability, language, and other cognitive functions.
“I had lost feeling in my whole left side. From the waist up, like, I wasn’t able to move my arm, my face began to drag,” Nolen said in an interview.
The doctors at the University of Miami’s Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center detected glioma, a common type of tumor, in his brain.
After the diagnosis, they told him that to further examine the tumor and eliminate it, they needed to perform surgery. The doctors also made an unusual request — they wanted Nolen to play some songs on the guitar while they operated on his brain, but why?
Kept awake by music
When doctors operate on a part of the brain associated with important functions like movement or verbal ability, they prefer to have the patient aware rather than under general anesthesia. This is done because the doctors require continuous feedback from the patient to ensure everything is going according to plan.
“When a tumor 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,” Dr. Ricardo Komotar, director of the University of Miami Brain Tumor Initiative, told Fox News.
Komotar was one of the doctors involved in Nolen’s brain surgery. He explains that without continuous feedback from the patient, the surgeons would never know if a part of the brain is compromised during the operation.
Each year, hundreds of such surgeries are performed at the Sylvester Center alone. Depending on the patient, the doctors may ask them to read, sing, play violin, or do any other activity.
In Nolen’s case, they wanted him to play guitar because this activity is routine in his life. Nolen was also comfortable doing it, and it also allowed the doctors to keep him awake easily and monitor his body and hand movements effectively.
“I felt like it was such a unique experience that I couldn’t pass up – especially with my motor skills being on the line. The risk of being sedated for the entire procedure outweighed any fear or anxieties around the procedure itself,” Nolen said.
But was the surgery successful?
While doctors worked on the tumor in his brain, Nolen played several rock songs on the guitar including those from popular bands like Deftones and System of a Down. By the end of the operation, Komotar and his team successfully eliminated the entire tumor.
“He went home the day after surgery. He says his quality of life is better than it’s ever been, so I think his recovery has been remarkable,” Komotar said.
However, similar to any other brain surgery, Nolen wasn’t allowed to do much body activity for some weeks. This made him uncomfortable and uneasy for some time, but eventually, he began to feel better.
He is back to normal now. He goes to the gym and plays guitar every day, and is also able to exercise better control over his left hand.
However, the treatment is not over. The results of Nolen’s pathology tests are yet to come, and he is also likely to undergo chemotherapy and other follow-up medical procedures in the coming week.
Despite facing several bodily problems and undergoing complex brain surgery, Nolen stayed positive and didn’t let his fear overcome his love for playing guitar and feeling alive.
Hopefully, he will soon completely recover and his story will inspire millions of other patients across the globe who are also going through tough times.
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