I am feeling very nervous for my upcoming surgery. It is scheduled for November 12th. The thought of just going under anesthesia scares me. Knowing that a probe will be guided into my brain over several hours makes me want to cry. Not to mention the finance stuff, time off of work, and recovery all stresses me out too. Does anyone have any tips to mentally prep myself for surgery? Thank you so much!
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I’m assuming this is for the laser interstitial thermal therapy?
I can see why you’re bothered and I’ve no experience of LITT, so all I can share is that I think I felt very much the same going in for my embolization. General anesthetic, several hours in x-ray theatre, very fine catheter being threaded through my arteries all the way from my groin to my brain and I’d never done it before either. So it feels kinda similar, so I know how you are.
My encouraging take on it is that I got through my op well. I didn’t have any really worrisome side effects post op and I spent 2 or 3 nights in hospital to recover from the smarting from the contrast material used to guide the work and I guess the glue and the solvent. I had a good headache. But the outcome of mine was good, I went into theatre, I came out of theatre, I had a headache, I had some great drugs and honestly, if I found that I had to go and do it all again, I’d be annoyed, disappointed but also ok with it, to be honest. I could do it again with much less bother. The anticipation of my op was worse really than the reality. I found I could do it. And you’ll find that you can do your op, too. I guess it’s the fear of the unknown that piles up on top of all the other stuff you mentioned.
When you go in, nobody expects you to be ok with what’s ahead, ok? Nobody. So the nurses just guide you through the day, you get looked after, you get to wear some outrageous clothes and you’ll wake up later without a clue what time it is. Then they’ll look after you more. With an embolization, you breathe out the solvent for the glue, so I stank of bubblegum and my mouth was as dry and unpleasant as could be. But I got through it perfectly well. You’ll be fine, too 
Is there anything we can talk about to help you rationalise your situation a little? It’s late over here, so I’m off to bed ASAP but I’ll catch up again tomorrow.
Lots of love,
Richard
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