{"id":781934,"date":"2026-09-25T07:28:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T07:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/781934\/"},"modified":"2026-09-25T07:28:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T07:28:11","slug":"experience-a-brain-surgeon-dropped-part-of-my-skull-on-the-floor-life-and-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/781934\/","title":{"rendered":"Experience: a brain surgeon dropped part of my skull on the floor | Life and style"},"content":{"rendered":"

On a Sunday in May 2017, I was at the gym and using a chest press when there was this pop. It wasn\u2019t a sound \u2013 it was more like a sigh\u00a0in my body. There was no pain, but I went\u00a0limp. I shuffled along the wall to some mats. I thought I was having a stroke, but I wasn\u2019t slurring and my eyes and arms seemed fine. But my left leg felt numb \u2013 it was the weirdest feeling. Lying on my back with my legs bent, both\u00a0knees stayed upright when I looked at them. When I looked away, the left one fell to the side.<\/p>\n

I ended up in A&E for hours at nearby St Thomas\u2019 hospital in London. I was 34, healthy and had started regaining feeling in my leg, so they theorised it was a bruised spine and thought it was safe to discharge me. Overworked staff and shift changes meant that when MRI images of my brain went missing, nobody tracked them down.<\/p>\n

At a follow-up appointment days later, my partner, Luke, argued with the consultant. I was still struggling to walk, and assuming I\u2019d had a stroke caused by a blood clot, the consultant wanted to prescribe a high-dose blood thinner. However, Luke \u2013 an ICU nurse at the time \u2013 demanded a scan.<\/p>\n

He saved my life. I returned from a CT scan to find the consultant looking pale: they had found a massive bleed on my brain and were sending me to specialists at King\u2019s College hospital. Blood thinners might have killed me.<\/p>\n

Tests confirmed an arteriovenous malformation (AVM) \u2013 a mass of tangled blood vessels \u2013 had ruptured close to the part of the brain that controls motor function in my limbs, causing a stroke. The consultant neurosurgeon and AVM expert rated it 4 out of 6 on the Spetzler-Martin grading system, which measures complexity, location and size.<\/p>\n

double quotation markThe surgeons considered 3D-printing a replacement and putting the skull back in months later, but instead cleaned it<\/p>\n

Grade 4 is typically considered too risky to remove. But I was young; he said if I was game, he was, too. Without surgery, there was the risk of another serious bleed.<\/p>\n

The operation required three neurosurgeons plus supporting teams of anaesthetists and nurses, so it couldn\u2019t happen until July. Those weeks of waiting were hard. My limp disappeared, but knowing the AVM could pop again was terrifying.<\/p>\n

The surgery lasted more than 16 hours, and afterwards Luke was called and told it had gone well. However, the doctor sheepishly added: \u201cThere\u2019s something we have to declare. We\u2019re really sorry, but we dropped his skull.\u201d<\/p>\n

Right at the end, the piece they had taken out got knocked to the floor. Infection was the concern, so they considered 3D-printing a replacement and putting it in months later, but instead cleaned it and dosed me up with extra antibiotics.<\/p>\n

\u2018I love to imagine them picking up the bit of skull, dusting it off, and saying, \u201cFive-second rule!\u201d\u2019 Photograph: Rebecca Lupton\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

I found out days later, when I was woken from my induced coma. But it meant nothing to me because I was on so many drugs, hallucinating visions and crying uncontrollably whenever I\u00a0was happy or thankful.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t care. Even now, I find it hilarious that my skull has been on the\u00a0floor. I love to imagine them picking it up, dusting it off, and saying,\u00a0\u201cFive-second rule!\u201d The\u00a0surgeons had pulled about 100\u00a0metres of blood vessels out of me for 16\u00a0hours. They were exhausted. And they fixed me.<\/p>\n

Recovery wasn\u2019t easy. Relearning how to walk was horrible, and I was exhausted for months. For a long time, whenever I tilted my head I could hear brain fluid gurgling. I still have loss of proprioception in my left foot \u2013 without looking directly at it, I can\u2019t control it, so I can\u2019t drive manual cars.<\/p>\n

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I\u2019ve never felt sorry for myself, because I\u2019m just so grateful. It brought Luke and me closer: we got engaged weeks after surgery and married in 2021.<\/p>\n

I later learned that, once in surgery,\u00a0they discovered the AVM was bigger and more complex than first thought. The consultant neurosurgeon\u00a0now uses my case as evidence that larger AVMs can be removed successfully.<\/p>\n

While recuperating, I came across a study that said survivors of life-threatening situations are some of the happiest people. I feel that deeply. You couldn\u2019t design a better life-changing experience. Skull-drop included.<\/p>\n

As told to Amy Swales<\/p>\n

Do you have an experience to share? Email experience@theguardian.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On a Sunday in May 2017, I was at the gym and using a chest press when there…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":781935,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[59,102,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-781934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-gb","tag-health","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=781934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/781935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=781934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=781934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=781934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}