Actually, that's Dr. Black.
Dr. Black is the surgeon who will be performing Charles' craniotomy on Monday. He's one of THE BEST neurosurgeons in the world for meningioma patients! He's the Chief of the Neurosurgical unit at Brigham & Womens and he has a ton of other distinctions and positions. He was even recently named President-Elect of the World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies!
Originally Charles met with Dr. Mara in Albany, and then after his seizure in August he saw Dr. Moser at Umass in Worcester, MA. However, I saw no reason not to try to get the best doctor for Charles that we could. Even if he doesn't have a malignant immediately life threatening tumor it's still BRAIN SURGERY! So I did some research and one of the names that kept popping up was Dr. Peter Black. So I did a little more research on him and found out that he has specific interest in Meningiomas and he's associated with The Meningioma Project. Pretty neat!
I then contacted a co-worker who had undergone brain surgery last year and I asked him if he had an advice on neurosurgeons. He sent me a wonderfully helpful response that untilmately gave rave reviews for Dr. Black. I shared the email with Charles' mom, and she was very interested because she knew that the husband of one of her high school friends worked in the Neurology department of Brigham & Womens! Small world! Ultimately Dr. Black actually emailed Charles to initiate setting up an appointment to see him, thanks to Suzanne's wonderful friends!
We all thought, it was meant to be.
We definitely feel more at ease knowing that one of the best doctors out there is going to be working on our Charlie. He deserves the best :)
We went to meet with him in Boston last month. BOSTON. I had to drive into BOSTON! Thankfully it's just off Rt 9 and only a few miles past the furthest east I'd driven before (which was actually Brigham & Women's ambulatory care center in Chestnut Hill... my Primary Care is still through B&W even though I moved out of Newton) and it wasn't too bad. THANK GOODNESS! And the most exciting part? Even though we waited HOURS to see the doctor (he was in surgery, that was more important! It's all good!) they gave us a neat little pager like they do when you have to wait in line at a restaurant and told us we could wander around, so we did! I was quite amused. Big fancy newfangled city hospitals! I bought a cookie.
Oh and Dr. Black seemed nice :)
Wow! It does seem very much like it was meant to be with this doctor. I can't think of a more comforting thought with something as scary as brain surgery.
ReplyDeleteI said this before over Facebook, but I'll say it again, I am so impressed with the positive attitude and sense of humor you guys have adapted to deal with something so potentially overwhelming and scary. I've never even met Charles (or you outside of Facebook!), but you're both in my thoughts and I'll be following all the information you share on this blog and sending all the positive energy I can your way! - Natalee