Craniotomy Preparation Tips

My husband and I did not do all of the things I list here, but we realized after the fact that they would have been helpful.

1.     Cleaning.

a.     Do all your laundry as close to your surgery date as possible. Make sure that your comfy, lounge-y recovery clothes are ready for you.

b.     Clean your house, especially the bathrooms, and change your bedsheets the night before leaving for the hospital.

c.     Take out the garbage!

d.     If you live in a house, do all or as much of the seasonally appropriate yardwork as you can.  

2.     Pay any outstanding bills. You probably have a stack of medical bills sitting around. If you are able, pay off everything you can before surgery because you are liable to forget such things afterward—and you don’t want to pile up overdue charges just because you’re recovering from surgery. This will also clear the slate for when you get that whopping $70,000 bill that's for only part of your surgery/hospital stay. (Thank the maker for our insurance!)

3.     Food.

a.     Lay in a supply of non-perishable or slow-to-perish, easy-to-prepare food items. I have a husband who can cook and friends who arranged a meal train, so this was less urgent, but it is still something you ought to do, as you may be left alone at some point and have to feed yourself while you still have issues with executive functions or fine motor skills. Some ideas:

                                               i.     Packets of hardboiled eggs and hummus make for a decent breakfast. Cereal works, too.

                                             ii.     Precooked sausages (kielbasa!) are easy.

                                           iii.     I’m not into frozen foods, but stock up if you are.

                                            iv.     Raviolis or other pastas and premade sauces will keep you fed.

                                             v.     Apples are available year-round and keep in the fridge for ages.

                                            vi.     Ice cream will make you feel better, unless you’re lactose intolerant.

                                          vii.     Beverages such as tea, coffee, juice or soda, LaCroix, cocoa, etc. No booze for a while, though, especially if you’re prescribed Keppra.

b.     If you cook, consider making soups and casseroles that you can freeze. I was too busy to do this.

c.     Is there a special treat you’d like when you get home from the hospital? Ask for it! I instructed my sister to provide me with our family favorite, Special K bars (recipe to follow). I credit my rapid healing to these delectable treats.

d.     Sign up for either a grocery delivery service or a restaurant delivery service like Amazon Restaurants or BiteSquad. Become familiar with which restaurants deliver to your home. My suggestions for post-surgery groceries, in addition to some of the aforementioned foods:

                                               i.     Prepackaged salad mixes. You need veg. 

                                             ii.     Frozen, microwaveable veggie blends. Vegetables are the path to health.

                                           iii.     Rotisserie chicken. It's already cooked!

                                            iv.     Kefir. You’ve been given an antibiotic for surgery, and your meds may be doing who-knows-what with your digestion. Though kefir doesn’t taste great unless you like fermented milk, it has more active cultures than yogurt, so take it like medicine. This is my go-to treatment for any digestive complaint.

                                             v.     Grapes, bananas, and other easy to consume fruits. You may develop a sharpened sweet-tooth, so having healthy natural sugar sources around will help prevent ballooning weight.

4.     Transportation. You won’t be able to drive for a while, and you will probably have 2-3 doctor’s appointments in the first month. If you don’t have someone to drive you, either see if your insurance offers a driving service or become comfortable using public transportation or Lyft/Uber before you have surgery. I have never used Lyft/Uber, so I didn’t want to have my first experience with it while I’m on my own and not entirely brain-stable.

5.     Dependents. Obviously, if you have kids or pets, you’ll need to make arrangements for them. I have neither, so I can’t help you here. However, I do have many plants, mainly orchids, so I made sure that they were all properly watered before I left and I gave my husband simple instructions about how to care for the ones that need daily attention. 

My babies

6.     Supplies for your comfort. You’ll be sent home with prescription pain meds, but if you don’t have much pain, you should switch over to acetaminophen (Tylenol) as soon as you can tolerate it, so have plenty in store. (No ibuprofen or naproxen, though.) I had trouble sleeping, so my GP approved taking a Benadryl as needed. Flexible ice packs (or packets of frozen veggies!) are good for your head, too. Aside from those, you’ll want other things that comfort you: lotions, candles or essential oils, soft blankets, fluffy pillows, etc. Become familiar with the Danish term hygge and plan accordingly. My Danish side has been coming through quite strongly since surgery.

7.     A craniotomy cap.  We picked up a chemo cap (see post "Who Wore It Best?") in the gift store on our way out of the hospital, but the Midtown Global Market (connected by walkway to my hospital!) has a wide range of colorful head-wraps for Muslim women that would work even better. You might be able to get away with a baseball cap, depending on the location of your incision, but remember that for a few days, it’ll have to fit over your bandage. If it’s cold weather, a knit beret or cap will make people think that you just have a cold head (part of it will be colder than usual). Experiment with scarves.

8.     Your contact list. Who will want to know how you’re doing as soon as you’re out of surgery? Make sure that your companion/health advocate has the names and contact information for all of them. Indicate which people will want phone calls and who’ll be okay with a text. If anyone is planning to visit you, give them instructions on how to find you, including parking.

9.     Prepare your legs. Yes, you read that right. Get comfortable doing deep squats, bending at the knees and keeping your back as straight as possible. The reason for this is that you should not invert your head for quite a while after surgery, so if you drop something when you’re home or need to pick up something off the floor, you need to squat to do it. (Or have someone else pick it up, of course.)

10.  Your preferences about lifesaving & list of medications/supplements. You will also be asked how much intervention you want the doctors to do if something goes seriously wrong, for example, if you start to bleed out. in the OR. Do you want them to try to save your life with blood transfusions? Most likely, you’ll answer, “Yes, please save my life,” but just be prepared for the question about needing blood and don’t freak out. Most likely, your pre-surgical instructions will tell you to leave your medications at home but bring a list of what they are and the dosages. If you take birth control pills, however, you should bring those, even though the instructions say otherwise. The pharmacist that I saw right before my surgery said, “Those are the one kind that, due to their daily nature and marked pill packs, you need to supply yourself.” Note, however, that you may not be allowed to take them the first day or two, as they increase the risk of deep vein thrombosis, but let your doctors fight over that.

11.  Your post-surgery line or quotation. You will want to indicate to your loved ones as soon as you come out of anesthesia that you’re doing well (as long as you actually are). One of the best ways to do that is to be prepared with some quip or plucky movie quotation. Blogger “The Everywhereist” gave this same advice, and it made me laugh because I had already selected mine.  [Note: The list she gives of 70 things she learned from brain surgery is a good read; she's very funny. Some of our experiences/advice overlaps, but some things are vastly different, such as #41 on her list. Hint: That's not an issue if you don't have a colon.] Whereas she went with Arnold Schwarzenegger, I went with Han Solo. Not sure how well I executed it, but Brian claims he got my reference. Rehearse it a few times in private, but don’t reveal it until after surgery.

 Recipe for Special K Bars

(I don’t claim they’re healthy, but they did make me feel better.)

1 cup sugar
1 cup corn syrup
2 tsp vanilla extract, at least
1 ½+ heaping cup peanut butter (the more the better)
4-5 cups Special K cereal
11 oz. bag of semisweet chocolate chips
11 oz. bag peanut butter chips (This is key. If you do not use peanut butter chips or even just peanut butter in the frosting, you are doing it wrong and it’s an abomination for which you should be ashamed.)

Optional: Seasonally appropriate sprinkles—or seasonally inappropriate, if that floats your boat

Instructions:

1.     Spray a 9 x 13 pan with Pam, other cooking spray, or butter.

2.     Mix the sugar and corn syrup in a pot on medium heat until the sugar dissolves.

3.     Turn heat off and add the vanilla and peanut butter. Once combined, quickly stir in the cereal to coat it all.

4.     Spread mixture in the pan.

5.     Using a double boiler or a glass bowl set over a pot of boiling water, melt the chocolate and peanut butter chips. Spread over the cereal base and add sprinkles if you want. Set aside to cool for a couple hours, or if you can’t wait, stick them in the fridge/freezer/winter weather.

6.     To make sure you get the lion’s share of the goodies, look sad, point to your head, and say, “I have a brain boo-boo.”