Haircut

More hospital stuff today but back at the Walton Centre (neurology) where I had my brain op, so a bit freaky going there. The neurosurgeon having signed me off as his handiwork was successful, I am now under the aegis of the neurovascular team, so today I met the consultant of that discipline. He quoted lots of statistics and risk assessment surveys and we discussed the possibility of having my second (as yet unruptured) aneurysm treated. As it is in the left hemisphere and I'm right-handed, if this ruptures it could cause a lot more damage than the right hemisphere one which burst last August, causing physical and verbal impairment or worse. The idea of that ticking time-bomb does stress me out somewhat, and ideally I'd like it made safe so that I don't have to worry about it anymore. Surgery carries a small(ish) risk of death, stroke, coma or epilepsy, but a slightly smaller risk than the chance of rupture if untreated, in which case there's a 1 in 3 chance of death, 1 in 3 chance of severe impairment, and 1 in 3 chance of surviving with the same sort of deficiencies I have already suffered. It's hard to get my head round all those rolls of the dice, not being a gambler, but I'm not one to ignore things and hope for the best, and like to have all the information just to feel I have a teeny bit of control over things. Silly really, as if there's one thing I've learnt over the last year, it's how little control we have over our own fate; terrible things can happen to anyone at anytime, and there's bugger-all we can do to prevent it. What we decided was that I will have a cerebral angiogram in about 6 weeks, to assess how difficult the surgery would be if carried out through an artery like the first surgery - if too complicated it would mean taking the craniotomy route which I really wouldn't care for one bit. Still, knowledge is power, so fingers crossed for that. Whether I could bear to go through that op again is another matter... I still have to have an op on my leg soon too. Bummer.

On a brighter note, the 3 dogs had their 6-monthly trip to the groomer's today and here is Minnie with her short-back-and-sides. Her tail was left bushy so she looks like an odd combination of meerkat and squirrel.