A top L.A. neurosurgeon shares how he finesses procedures where the outcome is brutally binary: success or death
Life on the Edge
H
E CAME TO ME,
this nineteen-year- old with a time bomb in his head. Scheduled as the seventh patient in my Friday clinic, he brought notes from the two neurosurgeons who had already seen him. An
artery in his brain was dangerously malformed and at risk of exploding due to an aneurysm, a spot where the blood vessel is stretched thin and, like a balloon, in danger of bursting. With each heartbeat, a pressure wave rippled out from his heart and risked tearing the artery. With each heartbeat, he was gripped with fear.
7 2 L A M AG . C O M
BY DR . RAHUL JANDIAL ILLUSTRATED BY ROBERT CARTER