My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey by Jill Bolte Taylor Page B

sight! I'm sure all of my visitors thought she resembled Medusa. Out of boredom, she routinely struck up a conversation with everyone who looked in on me. I, on the other hand, was desperate for silence and minimal sensory stimulation. The TV noise from her half of the room was a painful suction of my energy. I considered it totally counterintuitive to my idea of what I found to be conducive for healing.
There was a lot of excitement floating in the air that morning. My colleagues, Francine and Steve, had already arrived and several doctors were milling about the immediate area. The results were in from the angiogram and it was time to get down to the business of setting my treatment plan. I remember clearly the moment G.G. came around the corner into my room. She looked me straight in the eye and came right to my bedside. She was gracious and calm, said her hellos to those in the room, and then lifted my sheet and proceeded to crawl into bed with me. She immediately wrapped me up in her arms and I melted into the familiarity of her snuggle. It was an amazing moment in my life. Somehow she understood that I was no longer her Harvard doctor daughter, but instead I was now her infant again. She says she did what any mother would have done. But I'm not so sure. Having been born to my mother was truly my first and greatest blessing. Being born to her a second time has been my greatest fortune.
I felt perfectly content all wrapped up in my mother's love. She was kind and soft and obviously freaking out a little, but overall, I thought she was nice and I liked her. It was a perfect moment for me, and who could ask for anything more? I was catheterized so I never had to get out of bed and this very nice woman walked right into my life and surrounded me with love!
And then the conference began. Introductions were made, reports were in, and all the key players were present. Dr. Young set the tone and spoke directly to me as though I could understand. I appreciated that she did not simply speak to the others about me. First, she introduced Dr. Christopher Ogilvy, a neurosurgeon who specialized in arteriovenous malformations (AVMs). Dr. Ogilvy explained that the angiogram confirmed that my brain contained an AVM, and this congenital malformation was responsible for my hemorrhage. I had a history of migraine headaches which never responded to medication. As it turns out, my physicians predicted that I was not having migraines at all, but was experiencing small bleeds over the years.
Although I could not understand much of what was being said during this pow-wow around my bedside, I was focused on what was being conveyed nonverbally. The expressions on people's faces, the tones of their voices, how they held their bodies as they exchanged information - were fascinating to me. In a funny sort of way, I was comforted to know that the gravity of my situation did actually warrant all of this fuss. No one wants to create this much commotion only to learn that, no, it was not really a heart attack - just gas!
The atmosphere in the room was tense as Dr. Ogilvy described the problems with the blood vessels in my brain. When he suggested that I have a craniotomy to remove the remnants of the AVM and a clot the size of a golf ball, G.G. became unglued and her nervousness was obvious. Dr. Ogilvy further explained that if the AVM were not surgically removed, I stood the likely chance of hemorrhaging again and next time, I might not be so lucky getting help.
Honestly, I didn't really understand all of the details about what they were proposing to do - partly because the cells in my brain that understood language were swimming in a pool of blood and partly because of the sheer speed of their conversation. In my condition, I thought I understood that they were planning on passing a suction instrument up through my femoral artery into my brain to suck out the excess blood and threatening tangle of vessels. I was aghast when I realized it was their plan to