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Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

No one could have predicted…

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There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Yes. It Really Is Brain Surgery

Yes. It Really Is Brain Surgery

by | 114 Comments

This post is in: 

To this. Except you can’t.  No selfie you will ever take can trump what Steven Keating achieved:

[Warning: not (to me) gross stuff in the video below. But graphic. Front row seats and all that.]

I love the utter commitment to the prinicple that more knowledge — even tough truths — is always better than less.

And with that, an open thread. What’s teasing the inside of your skull this afternoon?

Reader Interactions

114Comments

  2. 2.

    Betty Cracker

    [Pukes in wastebasket] Well, you said right in the title that it is brain surgery, but I thought it was a metaphor! S’alright — I’m one of the few non-medical professionals in my family, and they love grossing me out by describing such things, so I feel right at home in this thread.

    This evening, my kiddo and I are going to see “The Avengers” in 3D with our special 3D glasses courtesy of valued commenter Amir Khalid, who came up with the concept of 3D clip-ons.

  4. 4.

    JCJ

    Never been to a craniotomy. A friend from high school told me he went in to neurosurgery because he could get paid to put holes in people’s heads.

  6. 6.

    Tree With Water

    Ted Cruz makes sense of it all: “You know I understand the concern that’s been raised by a lot of citizens about Jade Helm”.

  7. 7.

    raven

    When my bride showed up at the ER yesterday I told her it was sweet of her to come but that she didn’t need to look at it and it was just my hand!

  8. 8.

    Phylllis

    Not getting out of the boat, even for Tom. 35 work days left in this school year. White knuckling it from now till June 24th.

  9. 9.

    currants

    @Phylllis: {{hugs}}
    Used to teach high school. It literally made my stick-straight hair curl. I too used to count the days. It So glad I got out of that.

  10. 10.

    Seanly

    I suppose I should be thankful that your link or video isn’t showing up…

  12. 12.

    Keith G

    Awesome. I love the notion that so many ailments that killed or disabled friends and family when I was a child are now treated and the patient walks out of hospital and resumes normal living.

    And I hate the notion that so many in this country are left out – left out of a basic life that is sustaining, left out of even knowing that such hospitals as the one above exist, and left out of some of the simplest choices that most take for granted everyday.

    Edit

    @Seanly: Oh no. It really is interesting/amazing.

  14. 14.

    catclub

    @JCJ:

    he could get paid to put holes in people’s heads.

    Panning for gold, trepanning for profit.

  16. 16.

    Major Major Major Major

    Just finished Krav Maga class myself.

    “So, once you’ve removed their hands from your throat and kicked them in the balls I want you to elbow them in the head… Really doesn’t matter which way they turn their head at this point…”

  17. 17.

    leeleeFL

    @F: That is very much like Cheney at the debate with Edwards. And Romney’s tech peeps. So much fail, it is delightful!

  18. 18.

    gene108

    Cool vid…

    It seemed to me, when they cut to audio, were the surgeons talking to the patient?

  19. 19.

    D58826

    The state and federal authorities are being real quiet about those two guys that attacked Pam Geller’s party yesterday. What little that has come out makes it kind of obvious that it qualifies as a terrorist attack. The fools went for Geller’s bait and just wound up dead. I wonder if the relatively low key response by the authorities is because they are in the process of rolling up others in the plot? The right wing of course is going nuts and dreaming up all kinds of things that the liberals are at fault for. Never moind that the liberals never said any of it. Life is easier in a fact free bubble.

  20. 20.

    trollhattan

    Know how fracking generates a LOT of waste fluid (mostly water and the rest a witch’s brew of chemicals) and it’s sometimes left in retention ponds and sometimes disposed underground via injection wells? Well, buckaroos, it’s also used to grow crops. After treatment and dilution, of course, but is so happens that it’s not treated for everything and the treated water isn’t tested for everything and, also, too, it’s the oil company doing the sampling and testing.

    Oil giant Chevron recycles 21 million gallons of that water each day and sells it to farmers who use it on about 45,000 acres of crops, about 10% of Kern County’s farmland.

    State and local officials praise the 2-decade-old program as a national model for coping with the region’s water shortages. As California’s four-year drought lingers and authorities scramble to conserve every drop, agricultural officials have said that more companies are seeking permits to begin similar programs. The heightened interest in recycling oil field wastewater has raised concern over the adequacy of safety measures in place to prevent contamination from toxic oil production chemicals.

    Until now, government authorities have only required limited testing of recycled irrigation water, checking for naturally occurring toxins such as salts and arsenic, using decades-old monitoring standards. They haven’t screened for the range of chemicals used in modern oil production.

    One environmental group has tested the irrigation water for oil field chemicals. Over the last two years, Scott Smith, chief scientist for the advocacy group Water Defense, collected samples of the treated irrigation water that the Cawelo Water District buys from Chevron. Laboratory analysis of those samples found compounds that are toxic to humans, including acetone and methylene chloride — powerful industrial solvents — along with oil.

  22. 22.

    Amir Khalid

    @Betty Cracker:
    I haven’t seen it yet — I’ve been a bit under the weather lately, and I don’t fancy taking a cough to the cinema. But I should be okay in a day or so.

    I was once shown a video of an autopsy, from start to finish, at a professional presentation of an imaging-based alternative to cutting up the dead. I mean, it showed everything. There were doctors (the real audience) present along with us journos. I did not see any journo throw up. (Not during the video, at any rate.) This is much briefer and less, ahem, comprehensive than that autopsy video.

  23. 23.

    gene108

    @D58826:

    The fools went for Geller’s bait and just wound up dead.

    I would not call them fools.

    There seems to be some very serious (about their religion) Muslims, who want to kill the next person, who depicts a visual image of the Prophet Mohammed.

    They need to re-examine their relationship between both their faith and their stay in a non-Muslim country, because something has to give.

  25. 25.

    gene108

    @efgoldman:

    56 more days and I’m retired!

    Wish I was closer to retirement…stooopid lottery tickets not winning for me…

    A small fraction of the lottery tickets that have not won me enough money to retire on:

    :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-(:-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-(

    Probably less than 30,000 but who is counting (not me)

  27. 27.

    D58826

    @gene108: Point well taken. Maybe I should have said ‘foolishly took the bait’. The local Muslim community apparently was urging their people to stay away and not even dignify it with a picket line. They didn’t want to give Geller the photo op. Unfortunately these two guys have given her a big one.

  28. 28.

    Pogonip

    @Major Major Major Major: Become familiar with the self-defense laws in your state in the unfortunate event you need to use your techniques. Your school should give you the basics but many never get around to it.

  30. 30.

    Elizabelle

    Meanwhile, Mr Sheryl Sandburg’s possible cause of death at 47 is head trauma. Falling off a treadmill at posh resort and cracking his head open.

    Kind of apropos for the thread.

  31. 31.

    MomSense

    It was finally warm today so I took the nicest walk at lunchtime. I walked past the dog park and saw all kinds of dogs just running and playing while their humans sat on benches and watched. I will probably take the pup there so she can play. She has a lot of attitude with other dogs and does not seem to realize she is smaller than most of them.
    This morning I heard a piece on NPR that got me fired up. http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2015/05/04/401971833/a-novel-dutch-lawsuit-demands-govt-cut-carbon-emissions
    I’m sick of waiting while our politicians do nothing.

  32. 32.

    Amir Khalid

    @gene108:

    They need to re-examine their relationship between both their faith and their stay in a non-Muslim country,

    That is not what they need to examine. What they need to examine is how easily they let other people push their buttons and manipulate them into murderous anger.

    As for Pam Geller, she’s not going to examine her actions — ever. She probably sees what happened there as a vindication of her beliefs about them, Muslims, and their bloodthirsty intolerance. She certainly has proof that her hateful provocations were, in this instance, a success.

  34. 34.

    Death Panel Truck

    What’s teasing the inside of your skull this afternoon?

    An annoying fucking headache is what. I had an appointment with my nephrologist this morning, and everything is great. Comprehensive metabolic panel and CBC were all normal. I’m holding my own against FSGS.

    Came home in a great mood, and then my head started pounding. I rarely have headaches, and aspirin usually knocks them out, but this one is a stubborn SOB.

  39. 39.

    scav

    Those heavily armed paragons of morally perfected xians that loudly whine about taking their country back and about oppression if they don’t hear their exact preferred seasonal greeting, gee golly, perfected beacon of religious rectitude, moderation and tolerence that — soooooo impressed by their superior moral culture of taunting other religions into violence while at the same time legislating the freedom to be above the law while enforcing their own religious prejudices.

  40. 40.

    shell

    Under the category of ‘Truth stranger than Fiction…’

    A musical based on the family featured in the “Duck Dynasty” reality TV series is closing in Las Vegas, a little more than a month after it opened.
    ********

    There’s been lots of bad ideas for a new musical, but really, these homophobic fuckers? A musical?
    Damn, now I want to see some of the titles of those songs.

  41. 41.

    Eric U.

    @shell: wikipedia is strangely silent about the nature of the musical. Apparently it is based on a book

  42. 42.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    She has a lot of attitude with other dogs and does not seem to realize she is smaller than most of them.

    @MomSense: Now that my dog has gone to the great tummy rub and bacon distribution center in the sky, the undisputed queen of the block is a dog that would mostly fit under my shoe. She is tiny, smaller even than all the cats, but is utterly fearless and has even the giant, unsocialized German Shepherd scared shitless of her.

    It’s been a year and eight months and I still miss my dog. This never ends, does it?

    It seemed to me, when they cut to audio, were the surgeons talking to the patient?

    @gene108: Very likely. One of the more interesting things about brain surgery is that the patient is usually awake for it.

  47. 47.

    Pogonip

    More medical: my dad had a mini-stroke because he mistakenly thought he was supposed to stop taking a daily aspirin. ER people suggested always repeating back what you think you heard your doctor said. I pass that on.

  48. 48.

    MomSense

    @CONGRATULATIONS!:

    No, it never ends. It’s only been five months since I lost my dog but sometimes it still feels acute. I was telling the kids stories about some of the things he did as a puppy the other day and we had such a good laugh. Ugh I miss that old scoundrel.

  49. 49.

    raven

    @Pogonip: They saw a “lesion” on my xray and referred me to an orthopod. I called and got an appointment tomorrow but I can’t remember when!!!

  50. 50.

    Ruckus

    @efgoldman:
    Got 3-4 yrs till I go from semi to full retired. If the part time thing is to be believed, I’m going to enjoy it.

  52. 52.

    raven

    @efgoldman: I’m shooting for 2 more years to try to get 20 in the system and have 40% of my salary. Maybe the fucking addition will be done by then.

  53. 53.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @efgoldman: That’s a mean thought; shame on you. I’m sure Amir Khalid has a very nice goat.

  55. 55.

    Josie

    @CONGRATULATIONS!:

    It’s been a year and eight months and I still miss my dog. This never ends, does it?

    It really doesn’t. The sense of loss is not as acute, but it is always there. I lost my big girl, Teddi, three years ago and still think of her almost every day. I have a sweet corgi whom I love a lot, but Teddi will always be with me.

  56. 56.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @raven: As beat up as your hand is, I’m not surprised there is a lesion. Of course I hope it’s nothing. Isn’t the stitched pinky crooked like your old man’s?

    (Clearly I pay way too much attention to the details people post.)

  59. 59.

    Xboxershorts

    My sister in law has one of these on her right side frontal lobe. Diagnosed about 8-9 years ago. Been in surgery twice for it and 3 rounds of chemo. She was never the sharpest tool in the shed but it’s been painful to watch the logic slide even further. Her super sweet disposition has never faltered though, but now it makes her a target for manipulation.

    This will kill her eventually but she’s done better than most even expected.

  61. 61.

    Corner Stone

    @trollhattan:

    Oil giant Chevron recycles 21 million gallons of that water each day and sells it to farmers who use it on about 45,000 acres of crops, about 10% of Kern County’s farmland.

    Holy.Fuck.Balls.

    Goddamn unfettered capitalism.

  62. 62.

    karen marie

    @CONGRATULATIONS!: No, it doesn’t. I will always have an empty place where my James used to be. My current dog Lucy is a wonderful girl but James was one in a million.

  63. 63.

    WereBear

    In addition, we usually mourn a pet at the end of a long and fruitful relationship, while the new pet is still in an ongoing development stage for quite some time.

    Last fall I had to say goodbye to my cat James Bond. Eighteen years is a long time, and huge chunk of my life bound up with his.

  64. 64.

    srv

    Health officials are expected to meet with teachers and parents on Monday after a recent outbreak of chlamydia at a high school in the small West Texas city of Crane. Officials will detail the school’s sex education program and discuss the spike in sexually transmitted diseases, or STDs, something they say is a growing problem in some Texas school districts. State health officials were alarmed by the outbreak at Crane High School, which has about 300 students and has confirmed 20 cases of chlamydia in recent weeks, according to local reports.

    Where is the State Guard?

  65. 65.

    heckblazer

    @CONGRATULATIONS!: Yup. If the patient is awake you can ask them questions and so precisely map out the problem areas, like they do at Johns Hopkins:

    During surgery, the neurosurgeon will stimulate the area around the tumor with small electrodes. To precisely locate the functional areas of the brain that must be avoided, the neurosurgeon will ask the patient to perform tasks such as talking, counting and looking at pictures.

    The neurosurgeon will use computer images of the brain taken before and during the procedure and the patient’s responses to create a map of the functional areas of the brain. The neurosurgeon then removes as much of the tumor as possible while avoiding the functional areas of the brain.

  66. 66.

    Brachiator

    @Elizabelle: Very sad if this is true. Reminds me of Natasha Richardson, Liam Neeson’s wife dying of a head injury she sustained in a skiing fall.

  67. 67.

    skerry

    My daughter, at age 13, fell on the asphalt playground at her middle school during a game of tag. She had a seizure and later diagnosed with bleeding in the brain. She was transported via helicopter to Johns Hopkins where Dr. Ben Carson (who I used to like) and others operated on her and saved her life. She was in the pediatric ICU for 10 days. She is now 25 and has no long-term effects. The doctors said her age definitely was a factor in her prognosis.

    It is amazing that a “simple” fall can cause such life-threatening damage.

  68. 68.

    NotMax

    @skerry

    We’re quite fragile creatures.

    Lord Carnarvon, financier of the King Tutankhamen expedition, died of complications arising from an infected mosquito bite.

  70. 70.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    @skerry:

    Other bicyclists sometimes try to talk me out of always wearing a helmet, even in “safe” places like bike paths, but head injuries are serious shit and if my head hits the ground at 10 or 15 MPH, it doesn’t matter if it was my fault or someone else’s fault, I’m still going to be seriously injured.

  71. 71.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @NotMax:

    We’re quite fragile creatures.

    At the same time, we can also absorb astonishing levels of physical abuse.

  76. 76.

    Pogonip

    I hope all the sick and injured mentioned here get well quickly, or if terminal, that they die peacefully.

  77. 77.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @raven:

    She probably wanted to hold your hand — the one thing you didn’t want her to do right then!!

    (Sent you a kind of well-wish message down at the bottom of the Bridgegate thread.)

  78. 78.

    pacem appellant

    I did it! I watched it without heaving! Whew. Can I watch something else now? Ohh, what’s this? I found the story of Lilly Carollo after that link, a trans woman living in CA. The editing to be pitch-perfect for Burbank (lots of car driving). Also, Lilly is beautiful. May she find peace.

  79. 79.

    Pogonip

    I am awed, not only that surgeons see the inside of a living brain, but that even the average slob like me can see it these days!

  80. 80.

    Corner Stone

    Who would’ve guessed that King James actually needs a little Love to get through these playoffs?

  81. 81.

    skerry

    @Mnemosyne (tablet): My brother took a nasty fall on his bike a few years ago. Busted his collar bone and cracked the helmet. No concussion or other damage to his head though.

  82. 82.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @efgoldman:

    efg: You will LOVE retirement. I guarantee it! (Interestingly, you and a dear friend in California, who is a reader for Warner Brothers, is also retiring in 56 days. And two years ago, I, too, retired on June 30th. Seems like a good choice of date.)

  83. 83.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @WereBear:

    I saw the initial story, but didn’t hear the follow-up, that Brownback tipped a measly 10%. That’s just fucking insulting.

  85. 85.

    Spinoza Is My Co-pilot

    @CONGRATULATIONS!:

    It’s been a year and eight months and I still miss my dog. This never ends, does it?

    Sir Walter Scott put it this way:

    “The misery of keeping a dog is his dying too soon. But, to be sure, if he lived for fifty years and then died, what would become of me?”

    It never ends. I miss all my departed dogs, some from decades ago, the latest just a couple years back. Time helps salve the wounds, as it does for any grief, but only just.

    Our current pack has one old darling of around 13 who is not very far, I don’t think, from his end. Perhaps another year or so, maybe less. This one will sting my wife more than any other yet — you’re not supposed to have favorite children, but though she’s loved them all, this sweet boy has had an ineffable specialness for her.

    It never ends.

  87. 87.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Elizabelle:

    I can’t take any pleasure in that story, though (and I’m pretty sure you didn’t mean it that way).

  88. 88.

    Corner Stone

    @WereBear: I recently had a lengthy discussion on tips, and the nature of a tipping establishment with my son.
    Fascinating to hear it back from someone who doesn’t understand why someone would tip.

  89. 89.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @shell:

    Damn, now I want to see some of the titles of those songs.

    No. No, you really don’t.

  90. 90.

    Corner Stone

    @Elizabelle:

    Meanwhile, Mr Sheryl Sandburg’s possible cause of death at 47 is head trauma. Falling off a treadmill at posh resort and cracking his head open.

    I’m wondering if we might not find out in the days ahead that he suffered a stroke or mini-stroke as primary cause. Not to be ghoulish about it.

  91. 91.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    @Brachiator:

    I don’t get it, either. There’s a weird anti-helmet movement in the cycling community. I sort of understand the people who get annoyed that helmets are presented as the all-encompassing safety measure that will protect you from all harm so other measures (like protected bike lanes or better driver education) aren’t necessary. I do NOT understand the people who try to convince others that wearing a helmet is actively dangerous and it’s safer to go without one.

  92. 92.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @skerry:

    She, and you, and your whole family, were incredibly fortunate. And I think all of us who are horrified at the very thought of Dr. Ben Carson as President of Anything, let alone the United States of America, are more than happy to celebrate his very real skills in medicine and surgery.

    Best wishes to your daughter. May she have a long, healthy, and joyous life.

  93. 93.

    Phylllis

    @efgoldman: 474 days for me. Unfortunately, they’re spread over the next three school years. But I can see retirement from Sarah Palin’s porch at this point.

  94. 94.

    Corner Stone

    Cavs aren’t doing anything to switch off to stop Pau Gasol because they can’t.

  96. 96.

    raven

    @SiubhanDuinne: EPU’s as we called it at FDL

    Hey! Nah, it ain’t bad. Random sharp pain but very seldom and, if I hit it the wrong way it hurts a bit. I have a splint that is keeping it immobile and I’w changed the dressing and cleaned it once. I took a pill last night and it totally fried any sleep so we’ll pass on that.

    thanks

    eta Call the Midwife continues to amaze!

  97. 97.

    Corner Stone

    @efgoldman: We actually went over a pretty wide spread on this topic. Mainly we discussed the nature of control.
    It’s tough when the other person has never worked for a wage *cough* Mitt *cough*, but I think my 10 year old gets it.

  99. 99.

    SiubhanDuinne

    This is O/T but tangentially related, as it involves surgery. On Friday, in his “Out on the Weekend” post, Charlie Pierce ended with:

    You may have noticed the light blogging day. By the time you read this, I will have had my right quadriceps tendon, which I tore by being an idiot and wearing one sandal and one slipper on my cellar stairs, reattached and likely will be on some sort of lovely pharmaceutical. I’ll be back on Monday with a heavily medicated take on the Sunday gobshitery. Meanwhile, be well and play nice, ya bastids. Stay above the snake line, or I’m dropping an interplanetary probe on your heads.

    Ouch ouch ouch, but I couldn’t help noticing that CPP didn’t post anything today. Understandable: I assume he’s either in major pain or so looped on farmasootikles that he can’t get his fingers to hit any of the right QWERTY keys. Hope he’s back with us in a day or two; I want to read his take on ChriChri, CarFi, BenCar, and the rest of the gobshites.

  100. 100.

    Corner Stone

    LeBron needs to use a shotgun next time as he is missing every damn thing he’s shooting at in the second half.

  103. 103.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @efgoldman:

    Unfortunately, we have neither the energy nor the finances to take grand tours like you do.

    Cheap hotels (or stay with friends), meals, and gas for the car. That was about it.

    Anyhow, you’ll certainly have more time to spoil your granddaughter just rotten, yes?

    I’m coming up again in mid-July, but not sure I’ll be able to do any socializing along the way. It’s the 70th birthday of our mutual friend in Boston, and his spouse is having a few people surprise him. Since I’m doing a major Midwestern drive in the fall (family reunion in Oak Park, plus, hopefully, meeting Tommy and jeffreyw and a few other friends en route), I’m pretty much planning to zip up to Boston and back so as not to blow all my travel budget too soon. But if it works out that I get an overnight near you, I’ll shout!

  104. 104.

    skerry

    @SiubhanDuinne: Thanks so much.

    She has become a wonderful young woman. She graduates from NYU with a Master’s degree this month and will be married in July.

  106. 106.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @raven:

    Sounds bad. I’ve never done it, but it seems like something that would be all too easy for an older (*cough*) person to do. Hope Charlie recovers quickly and fully.

  110. 110.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @efgoldman:

    Sorry, it sounds like a complicated family thing I haven’t followed. None of my business, but safe travels to everyone.

  111. 111.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @efgoldman:

    OH! You’re talking about John’s daughter! I was trying to make it all about your own granddaughter and son-in-law, no wonder I was confused.

    To answer: I expect so, but I don’t know the details. If so, want me to ask Ilana to invite you? I’m sure she’d be more than happy.

    (Addie?)

  112. 112.

    cckids

    @efgoldman:

    Being a great surgeon and being a complete asshole are not mutually exclusive.

    Several of the surgeons we’ve had for our son have fit both those definitions. We’ve always said we need the skill, not the personality.

    Though when you find a surgeon who has both, they are the best.

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