I'm 57 years old and considering surgery to remove a lesion in the left side of my brain (somewhere in the junction of the temporal and parietal lobes, I believe). I was possibly born with it, and epilepsy symptoms have appeared and gradually developed since childhood years. I turned down the offer of surgery about 7 years ago (not awake) because of risks - the lesion is very near an area that is crucial to understanding of language, which could get damaged in surgery (something like the left "superior longitudinal fasciculus" tissue). It's not likely to harm things like vision / music, etc., but language is a big part of life. However, now I'm considering it again - life with poorly controlled epilepsy for years / decades isn't always fun, and "brain mapping" during awake surgery may lessen the risks of limiting language understanding quite a bit. I'm being tested again soon ("video-telemetry") and advised for the next several months. It's a big decision, and I also help to take care of my 88-yr old father. As a Christian, I believe God knows what's best for me to do, and I hope to learn what that is. I'd like to learn from experience of lots of other people too, and this kind of surgery is new and it makes a big difference what part of the brain is being operated on.

I had a temporal lobectomy. My seizures were coming from my left temporal lobe. In December of 2000, I had a 3-inch cube of my brain removed and it has led to 25 seizure-free years. It was a 5 1/2-hr surgery and I was awake for two hours.

I’ve never have any type of waking brain sugery .

I was always put to sleep through anesthesia for the surgery . Whether it was my
1. left temper, lobe brain surgery
2 the VNS treatment
3 the DBS treatment later after the VNS stopped working.