Another article from you!

As others already have pointed out, almost everyone can tell a story from family or friends about brain surgery.

When I was 12, my mother had a cerebral apoplexy in the garden. She was taken to hospital by emergency and had a very long operation on her brain, I think it was eight hours. I was not allowed to go into the intensive care unit. Later, when she was lying in the normal room and I saw her for the first time, her head was completely shaved and she talked nonsense. Strangely enough, I wasn't very scared, although my father told me in simple words that my mother could remain "stupid". She said very blunt things, ordered the keeper around and smeared combinations on her bread that I had never seen her eat before. All in all she seemed like a funny child who was amused by what the others were doing or not doing. At that time she was a completely different personality, at least that's how it seemed to me. I think the reason I didn't worry so much was that I didn't see her suffer. There were no signs of psychological or physical discomfort with her. It took her several weeks to be able to properly speak, walk and move again. I suppose she also lost some nerves, such as her sense of smell. Although not completely. At some point she was back to her old self and the episode went into the past and we never actually talked about it again. At that time she was 54 years old. The funny thing is, that I missed that kind of mother, as she seemed less earnest and strict. I guess the others from my family perceived all things differently but I truly was in awe with this change she went through in a positive way. Maybe I repressed my fear, though, who can tell? ;-)

I agree with you about the complexity of the brain and the fact that you can't divide the individual abilities into small drawers and shelves and only assign them to certain regions. That would be too easy. I can't even begin to imagine what it's like to do an operation as a brain surgeon. In the past, people would simply have died from a brain haemorrhage, for example. My ex-brother-in-law had a severe operation and the location was so unfavourable that he subsequently has a permanent facial paralysis. However, he has lost nothing of his mind and no meta-skills.