Let me play my banjo, surgeon, while you prod my brain
October 18th 2008 21:07
Signature Tune
From: HeraldSun.com.au
IN a career stretching back more than 50 years, musician Eddie Adcock has performed in plenty of theatres.
In the most extraordinary performance of his life, the bluegrass maestro, 70, was asked to play his banjo while brain surgeons poked and prodded inside his head.
The doctors - who kept the musician conscious under a local anaesthetic as they explored his brain - were looking for the cause of a hand tremor that was threatening his career.
The pioneering operation was yesterday hailed a success and Adcock is now on the road to recovery.
Eddie Adcock is one of the world's most talented banjo players. His fast-picking and distinctive style made him an innovator of bluegrass.
But in recent years, Adcock's performances suffered as he began to experience mysterious shakes in his right hand. Doctors diagnosed "essential tremor" - an involuntary trembling that affects millions.
With Adcock worried his career was finished, doctors came to the rescue.
They proposed an operation called "deep-brain stimulation", where an electrode placed in the brain gives tiny electric shocks to suppress the nerve cells responsible for the tremor.
The electrode is connected by leads to a pacemaker implanted in the chest.
Although the procedure is straightforward, identifying the part of the brain responsible for the shakes is not.
So to ensure that the electrode was in just the right spot, surgeons kept Adcock awake throughout the operation at Vanderbilt University Medical Centre in Tennessee.
He lay on a table, clutching his banjo to his chest and picking at the strings, while surgeons prodded his brain through a hole in his skull.
When the surgeons found the right part of the brain, Adcock instantly regained his ability and was able to play at full speed once again.
The operation ended on a high note with a twang of lightning-fast-banjo picking.
"I came up in music the hard way and learned to be a trouper fast,' he said.
"Some of those early days were pretty rough, and I've been stomped, cut and kicked; but I never went through hell like this - it was the most painful thing I've ever endured.
"And it was risky. But I did it for a reason: I'm looking forward to being able to play music the way I did years ago prior to getting this tremor."
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Comment by Lester Caudill
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Hmm..., this deep brain stimulation seems like a very dangerous surgery and thank goodness that he is able to survive from it!
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