AWAKE THROUGH A BRAIN OPERATION

The gripping story of a patient's faith-and a surgeon's skill

- BY Annette Anselmo

In the autumn of 1953, Annette Anselmo of Salt Lake City, Utah, travelled to a well-known neurological institute to seek help from Dr Jones (not his real name), a renowned brain surgeon. For 30 years, ever since the age of four, Annette had suffered epileptic seizures with devastating frequency. Anti-convulsant drugs and a brain operation had banished the severest seizures. But she still suffered smaller convulsions, sometimes as many as 65 an hour.

Dr Jones studied her case history, made exhaustive neurological tests, took brain X-rays and electroencephalograms, then gave his decision. "We believe an operation will help you," he said. "But I do not promise a complete cure. And you realise the risk: you may be paralysed."

For Annette, the possibility was worth the risk. Here is her account of the operation as she experienced it.

"EARLY THAT MORNING a barber came into my room and shaved my head so that it resembled a large billiard ball. Then my bed was wheeled into the hall where Dad and my sister kissed me, trying hard not to cry. "Don't worry," I said. "I'll be back." My feeling was, "Today is the beginning of the end of my 30-year war against epilepsy."

In the X-ray room, a doctor said to me with a smile, "This is a big day for you." In one hand he had two wires, each about a metre long; in the other a glass of water. "I'm going to insert a wire in each of your nostrils," he said. "I want you to take a drink and swallow when I tell you to." The wires were to go down into my stomach. Each time the doctor said, "Swallow," a few more centimetres would disappear, until only about 40 centimetres remained in view. Then the doctor took an X-ray to see if the wires were in proper position. Three times they were not, and he would say, "Let's start over."