I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

– Dune, Frank Herbert

The human body has a way of absolutely bamboozling you when you least expect it.

If you dislike talk of surgery, read no further.

Awake craniotomy — or in english  — is brain surgery while you’re awake.

I would agree, that sounds like a terrible idea.

However, I was fascinated, and ever so mildly reassured, to learn that even though the patient is conscious during surgery, they don’t feel any pain.

The brain, being the mystical creature that it is, doesn’t contain nerve cell endings that detect pain: nociceptors.

With the help of a local anesthetic used to numb the scalp this allows for a pain free experience.

The benefits of being awake during this operation include better communication between doctors and patience for realtime responses to reduces the risk of damaging critical brain areas that control speech and other skills.

For example, one patient played the violin during an entire brain surgery so that her doctor could be sure she didn’t loose any ability when he was operation on the part of the brain that controlled motion.

So maybe Frank Herbert was on to something all along, fear is the mind killer, pain isn’t.

Photo by Leon Macapagal on Unsplash.