Y HAVE ALL OF MY COMMENTS DISSAPEARED!!!????

My Brain Surgery Experience
By David Gillam
7/3/06

Hello my name is David Gillam and I’m in 8 Ashdown. Some of you out there may know me. I’m about to tell you all about a story of me and my journey through having brain Surgery. Don’t worry I wont put in any gory bits.
It all started in 2002 when we had started taking me to see a Doctor in hospital at Hayward’s Heath where they started taking records of my height and weight as I had not been growing properly for some time in all aspects of my body. 4 years later (yes I said 4years later) they finally decided to take me in for some proper tests where they took blood for the whole day through a cannula. I had these tests twice at the end of 2005.
At the very end of 2005 they took me for and MRI Scan.

On my MRI Scan picture (which u can see in my album) You can see a great big white sack in the middle of my head.That big white sack which is two parts, is my Tuma. This tuma has probably been growing there since I was born. The Tuma has been squashing my pituitary gland (a gland which releases certain types of hormones which help me grow). This is the size of a pea. On the 15th February I went up to Kings College Hospital to see my surgeon Mr Chandler (he was a very funny Canadian man). He showed and explained to me this MRI picture and explained what would happen the week after when I went in.
On the 21st of February, Wednesday I was having a normal day (I wasn’t in school in case I caught any cold etc. before the operation) when at around 3:00pm we got a call from the hospital saying they had a free bed for us. It’s always hands on when you’re waiting for a bed ‘cause if you can’t get it straight away someone else will need it. We got to the hospital in the afternoon and my Gramps had to go back to feed the dogs, cats and birds but my Nan stayed with me for the rest of the time. We were lucky as we got our own room and we weren’t in the middle of a ward. We also had are own bathroom. We had arrived at around 6:00 so we went down to the canteen and had a Jacket Potatoe. Afterwards we un-packed the small suitcase we took for the both of us. Later on a young doctor came in and asked for some blood so I had to give it to him of course, even if I didn’t like it. It was strange that night as the night nurse we had, Nurse Emma was from Uckfield, anyone know her?
On the 22nd, Thursday the neurologist came and checked my nervous system by hitting my reflex’s with a tendon hammer, it was strange as she could tell I was scared just from doing this. I also saw a man called Dr Buchanan who told me what this condition is. The proper name is a Craniopharyngionma (crane-e-o-firandge-e-oma). This man is also going to be dealing with all my drugs and controlling my water works and hormone deficiency. Later on I had a chat with Mr Chandler again. Here is where I and my parents had to sign the consent form which told me the possible side affects. Some of which were permanent blindness, bleeding, too much pressure for the brain. In the end my pituitary gland will never work again. I signed the form in the end because I would have the risk of the tuma growing and blinding then killing me in the near future any way so it can’t get any worse.
On the 23rd I went into theatre (no I didn’t see a film or play.) Mr Chandler gave me a choice of hats he could where to cheer me up. I chose one with big flames on it.

I was completely out of it for about 8 hours and after that I hadn’t got a clue who I was, where I was or anything really. I had finally come properly come round a few days after but by then my days had completely been jumbled up.
I few days later we started putting me on the medication. As my pituitary gland has been completely and utterly squashed it will never work again so I have to take quite a few pills a day plus a special pen type thing which uses pressure to blast a small amount of chemicals into me. But you never