I’m already home. No, I have no idea how this happened. The original expectation had been that I’d take four days or so to recover following the removal of the tumor from my left temporal, which happened as intended yesterday morning. I apparently was conversational the entire time, as intended, even though I barely remember a damn thing and indeed worried that I’d fallen asleep when I was supposed to be collaborating with the crew.

After the removal itself, I was transferred to the Intensive Care unit, where I spent most of last night sleeping intermittently, frequently checked by nurses to confirm that my eyes, nerves, and general left/right side were all in working order.

This morning the surgeon himself, along with the anesthesiologist, had a look at me and basically decided that I was well enough to leave today. Apparently this happens infrequently enough that the staff of the ICU didn’t really know the procedure for getting out. (They were, like every other single person I’ve met with at Stanford, incredibly friendly the entire time, and did figure it out eventually.)

So now I’m home, and about to go to bed. I may sound reasonably normal in e-mail, but the truth is that at the moment I have to grope around blind for the appropriate term — noun, mainly — some of the time. You don’t notice this when I’m writing, but you’d notice it fairly quickly when speaking to me in person. This should faded over the next couple of days as the area near the removed temporal area reduces back to its usual size. We’ll see how it actually feels when I’m done.

I’m exhausted now, so I’m going to bed. Have fun tonight, whatever you all are doing, and I’ll try to update you soon.