Brain Surgery

We’ve all heard the phrase “it’s not brain surgery.” But what exactly is brain surgery? It’s a profession that is barely a hundred years old and profoundly connects two human beings, but few know how it works, or its history. In this warm, rigorous, and deeply insightful book, Dr. Theodore H. Schwartz explores what it’s like to hold the scalpel, wield the drill, extract a tumor, fix a bullet hole, and remove a blood clot—when every second can mean life or death.

With compassion and candor, leading neurosurgeon Henry Marsh reveals the fierce joy of operating, the profoundly moving triumphs, the harrowing disasters, the haunting regrets, and the moments of black humor that characterize a brain surgeon's life. If you believe that brain surgery is a precise and exquisite craft, practiced by calm and detached surgeons, this gripping, brutally honest account will make you think again.

With poignant insight and humor, Frank Vertosick, Jr., MD, describes some of the greatest challenges of his career, including a six-week-old infant with a tumor in her brain, a young man struck down in his prime by paraplegia, and a minister with a .22-caliber bullet lodged in his skull. Told through intimate portraits of Vertosick's patients and unsparing-yet-fascinatingly detailed descriptions of surgical procedures, When the Air Hits Your Brain illuminates both the mysteries of the mind and the realities of the operating room.

She spent her life helping others, but when her own life is on the line—can she find the strength to help herself? Sara Davidson has it all: a career as an immunologist, helping countless strangers face life-risking illnesses; a loving, devoted husband; and fantastic, supportive children. Nobody ever had any doubts about where her life was headed, least of all Sara herself. So when the migraines began, Sara was determined not to let them stand in the way of her work. At first, they were just a nuisance. Then they became debilitating. Before she knew it, she was looking at an image of a ...

Written with a poignant blend of honesty, dry humor, faith, and inquisitiveness, Smiling Again is a story of the persistence of life and beauty in spite of pain. Sally recounts the shock of diagnosis, a long and painful recovery from invasive brain surgery, her eventual retirement due to disability, and ultimately contentment and acceptance of a new life journey.

As one of the world's leading brain surgeons, Dr Jandial is the last hope for many patients who have extreme forms of cancer - patients who can't be saved, but deserve more time. Life on a Knife's Edge is his account of the resilience, courage and belief he has witnessed in his patients, and the lessons he has learned from them.

A perfect blend of medical drama and spiritual insight, Gray Matter is a fascinating account of Dr. David Levy's decision to begin asking his patients if he could pray for them before surgery. Some are thrilled. Some are skeptical. Some are hostile, and some are quite literally transformed by the request.

Dr. David Sandberg, an internationally renown pediatric neurosurgeon, combines his deep scientific and medical knowledge with raw emotion and unforgettably powerful stories of courage and love. The brain is the most complicated and perplexing of our organs, and it is also the one that makes us human. When it comes to a child's brain, the hearts of those who love them become inextricably linked to that story. In Brain and Heart, Dr. Sandberg describes the joy, heartbreak, uncertainty, and physical and emotional challenges that come with performing brain surgery on children.

Imagine only seeing a single number. Everywhere you look, all you can see is eight. You can’t spell your name. You can only draw a circle. You can’t add two plus three. This was Nathalie Jacob’s life after an invasive brain surgery. Nathalie hadn’t realized anything was wrong. She held a high-level job as a marketing executive and was discussing beginning a family with her husband when the doctors gave her the bad news. She had an intraventricular meningioma. She would need brain surgery. In the aftermath of the operation, Nathalie experienced everything like a small child. She had ...

Popular author and professional certified coach Valorie Burton knows that successful women think differently. They make decisions differently. They set goals differently and bounce back from failure differently. Valorie is dedicated to help women create new thought processes that empower them to succeed in their relationships, finances, work, health, and spiritual life. In this powerful and practical guide, Valorie provides a woman with insight into who she really is and gives her the tools, knowledge, and understanding to succeed.

For centuries, the human heart seemed beyond our understanding: an inscrutable shuddering mass that was somehow the driver of emotion and the seat of the soul. As cardiologist and best-selling author Sandeep Jauhar tells in The Heart, it was only recently that we demolished age-old taboos and devised the transformative procedures that changed the way we live. Deftly alternating between historical episodes and his own work, Jauhar tells the colorful and little known story of the doctors who risked their careers and the patients who risked their lives to know and heal our most vital organ.

Three months together, three months apart, 90 days from now until September. Koel Henshaw’s life changed when he fell unconscious to the floor of his high school calculus class. A year later, Koel is trying to enjoy his last few months of freedom before his summer is ruined by a looming surgery for a surprise—and now chronic—health condition. Having to give up his college football career, Koel also gives up getting locked down in a relationship before his surgery, so he is able to focus on getting back to the person he was before his diagnosis. One night, Koel meets Ryann Morrissey ...

Hit the lights and jump in the fire, you're about to enter the School of Rock! Today's lecture will be a crash course in brain surgery. This hard and fast lesson is taught by instructors who graduated from the old school - they actually paid $5.98 for The $5.98 EP. But back before these philosophy professors cut their hair, they were lieutenants in the Metal Militia.

Henry Marsh has spent a lifetime operating on the surgical front line. There have been exhilarating highs and devastating lows, but his love for the practice of neurosurgery has never wavered. Following the publication of his celebrated New York Times best seller Do No Harm, Marsh retired from his full-time job in England to work pro bono in Ukraine and Nepal. In Admissions he describes the difficulties of working in these troubled, impoverished countries and the further insights it has given him into the practice of medicine.

Life seemed idyllic for thirty-two-year-old Liz Holzemer. Wife of Major League Baseball pitcher Mark Holzemer, Liz was enjoying a successful career as a journalist when an MRI revealed a baseball-size brain tumor she soon found out was called meningioma. Told with clarity and unwavering humor, this book is an inspirational and informative account of one woman’s battle for her life. It shows how she emerged from this frightening diagnosis and two brain surgeries retaining her remarkable spirit of survival and renewed sense of purpose and hope. With practical information about meningioma ...

When 27-year-old Kristen Stewart was rushed to the ER with horrific dizziness and nausea, she never imagined how her young life was about to change. In My Brainstorm, Stewart shares the harrowing, heartwarming, and often hilarious story of her emergency brain surgery, rehab, egg freezing, radiation, and chemo. You’ll laugh and learn with Kristen as she navigates overcoming brain cancer.

The purpose of this book is to demystify headache surgery and explain why it works so effectively. I want you to understand what is causing your pain and how and why this procedure works. By understanding this procedure, you can make an empowered and informed decision about whether it might be the right path for you. While peripheral nerve decompression surgery may not be suitable for everyone, it has brought substantial relief to countless people suffering from migraines, tension headaches, occipital neuralgia, and more.

The notorious baby boomers - the largest age cohort in history - are approaching the end and starting to plan their final moves in the game of life. Now they are asking: What was that all about? Was it about acquiring things or changing the world? Was it about keeping all your marbles? Or is the only thing that counts after you're gone the reputation you leave behind?

In September of 2020, while on vacation, Shannon Taylor had a seizure. She was diagnosed with a large non-cancerous brain tumor on her brain stem that night. She spent the next two months awaiting a particularly invasive craniotomy. The tumor was rare, the surgical approach was rare, and the complications were rare. Sucks About Your Brain Tumor tells the story of Shannon’s healing through raw journal entries that update what each month (or so) were like from the medical standpoint.

What is it really like to be a brain surgeon, to hold someone's life in your hands, to drill down into the stuff that creates thought, feeling and reason? In this brutally honest account, one of the country's top neurosurgeons reveals what it is to play god in life-and-death situations. Henry Marsh gives us a rare insight into the intense drama of the operating theatre and the exquisite complexity of the human brain.