Journey to Paul's Broca

Paul needed brain surgery. He loved telling people that. As a 16 year old without a driver's license, he needed something, he felt, to distinguish himself from the ranks of juvies, and going under the knife just sounded cool. Even the simplest surgeries carried with them the threat of death but these surgeons were going straight to his ticker. One little mix up and his life would be over. He could tell that people went through that thought process whenever he told them. Their concern fed his ego.

The surgery itself wasn't even that serious. He didn't have cancer, although they were going to buzz off all his hair, giving him a chemo-stricken* look (*other acceptable alternatives: fascist neo-nazi, THX 1138 extra). The doctors just needed to run some tests after a rather bizarre head injury had resulted in an interesting fMRI reading. They had told him specifically what was wrong, but he hadn't remembered much, because he wasn't paying attention. He had been scared. The human brain, like the ocean, was the last frontier on earth. The fact that the doctors were shocked by his fMRI suggested that something unknown was occurring inside his skull. And while Paul was pleased to know that he was different, he was also worried that this difference could kill him.

The procedure was more simple to understand than the lists of possible things that were wrong. They were going to go inside the left side of his brain where they had noticed the discrepancy. He was going to be put under anesthetics because the problem appeared to be structural as well as functional, and they were basically going to look around, injecting a bevy of safety-approved chemicals to assess the problem.


No. He wasn't worried about the surgery, because his insurance covered it. His parents were a little nervous, but he assured him that he felt fine and was fine, and they, without medical degrees, couldn't disagree with him. He wasn't that worried when they wheeled him into the operating room. Nor was he that worried when he laid out on the table. But he did feel a fleeting shot of alarm when his vision became blurry and he noticed a blurred glint coming off of something that looked sharp. But in a couple of seconds he was unconscious, and he couldn't worry anymore.