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  • So on my grocery list I have craniectomy,

  • bone flap craniotomy,

  • excision meningioma, and it comes to a neat

  • 232 thousand seven hundred and thirty six dollars and 56 cents.

  • What a bargain.

  • Don't worry I have insurance but man this makes me worry about people who don't.

  • There are so many things I want to tell you and also so many things

  • I really don't want to tell you but bottom line is that I'm fine surgery went really well

  • I can see out of both of my eyes and

  • my brain seems to be working just as fine, or as poorly as it was before.

  • I had grade one meningioma

  • and it seems like a "good" brain tumor to have

  • but talking about a good brain tumor feels a little bit like

  • talking about a "fun" traffic jam.

  • There's nothing good or fun about them. They just...

  • ...suck different amounts.

  • So I named my tumor Brian the brain tumor because

  • things just get less scary if you name them and he had like definitely made himself comfortable

  • in there and had grown into my jaw muscle and into my eye orbit and into my bone

  • so now I have titanium mesh in the bone that separates my brain from my eye and I don't think that's a party trick

  • that's gonna give me a lot but still...

  • The scar though!

  • it's a pretty significant upgrade considering that my second coolest scar...

  • ...is from removing a birthmark on my butt.

  • So the days before surgery, I was like this weird combination of terrified and also really calm

  • Um... 'cause it's like you it's out of your control,

  • there's nothing you can do about it and my mom and my sister was there and Scott...

  • ...who works with me and is also one of my best friends and we had to get up at 4:30 a.m

  • to go to the hospital and I had started writing these letters to like people the people I love,

  • just being like hey, I don't know if I'm gonna be myself for a while so...

  • ...I just wanted to remind you that I really love you, etc. etc. etc. and

  • it was...

  • ...just the fucking saddest thing I've ever done and I just couldn't finish the letters 'cause I was like

  • this is terrible, screw these letters. I'm just gonna have to wake up fine 'cause I don't wanna have to do this...

  • ...and I did wake up fine.

  • Surgery took nine hours and I came out of anesthesia

  • just overhearing this nurse talking about how I am on YouTube

  • because I think she had seen me talk at some event here in San Francisco

  • so she was like "Don't you know who she is?!

  • She's famous!" to the other nurses and it was such a like weird and surreal thing...

  • ...to wake up to so I was just like:

  • please subscribe

  • No, I did not say that...

  • ...but I had told my family to tweet an update as soon as they knew how the surgery

  • had went because I knew that a lot of you are waiting and that you were worried.

  • They tweeted that I had said something inappropriate and the inappropriate thing that I said was my surgeon...

  • His name was Dr. Reddy, which is like the best name of a doctor ever but before surgery

  • I forbid myself from like joking about his name because you don't want to like upset the person who's...

  • ...about to shave your head when you're unconscious.

  • I feel like neurosurgeons...

  • They wouldn't let themselves do a bad job on the brain

  • but he could definitely have gone a little bit more creative with the shaving.

  • So, Dr. Reddy came over as I was getting out of anesthesia, and he was like,

  • "Hey Simone, how are you feeling?" and the first thing I said after 9 hours of surgery was

  • "Hi Dr. Reddy...

  • ...do people make a lot of puns about your name?"

  • and my family was like oh my God, she's still herself.

  • By the way, just the paranthesis. Dr. Reddy was so great.

  • I'm not an expert but he seems to have done an okay job on my brain

  • But um, he was also just so nice and pleasant and funny. Just great. Thanks. Dr. Reddy!

  • I spent two days at the hospital and those days were really not fun

  • I was pretty much constantly throwing up and vomiting and my hips hurt really badly from laying down so much

  • and I could like walk up and down the hallway but that was pretty much it.

  • Also I got this really weird thing where I had air trapped inside of my head

  • because when you have craniotomy, there can be like air bubbles that are inside of your skull...

  • ...and

  • it meant that every time I would move my head there would be this like weird

  • "bloop bloop bloop bloop bloop" sound...

  • ...and also in certain positions there would be this like dripping sound. It sounded like like water drops in a cave like *water dropping sounds*

  • Bloop and I guess it was just like spinal fluid dripping off of my brain

  • So that was fun

  • also

  • My most sincere apologies to the nurse that helped me shower

  • Because I obviously had a catheter for surgery and when they put it in they like inflate a balloon in your bladder

  • because

  • It's more fun that way? so they had removed it just earlier that day. So when I was in the shower with a nurse, I

  • Made like the longest fart it was like long and loud

  • And I was like, oh my god. I'm so sorry, but that did not come from my butt that came from my pee hole

  • I'm really sorry. I couldn't help it. So the weeks of surgery. I've been feeling better and better

  • I don't seem to have lost any cognitive abilities and my eyesight is still 20/20 at first

  • I kind of look like Gollum. Or like Smeagol, right?

  • As he transitions to Gollum and then I kind of started looking like the evil kid in Toy Story

  • I still kind of do but it's definitely gotten a lot better

  • but pretty much all I did was like lay around on this lap during my garden and

  • Eat a lot of food because I had to take a bunch of steroids

  • To reduce the swelling of my brain and it made me so hungry

  • and so angry I was riding in a car with my friend and we're trying to find parking in a parking lot and

  • I started giving people the finger which I don't think I've ever done previously in my life. My friend was like Simone

  • You can't flip people off. What are you doing? It was like these people are moving so fucking slowly

  • It's like they had brain surgery. I don't think I've ever been this angry in my entire life angry and hungry

  • Now I'm just like happy and hungry

  • a lot of people on Twitter have asked me if I have like changed personality since surgery which

  • Just for like the record is a pretty rough question to ask somebody who just went through brain surgery like it's fine with me

  • But just for like future reference, but yeah, of course

  • I've changed personality not because like the surgeon like slipped with a scalpel or sneezed or something like that

  • But just because I've gone through this pretty major thing and major things change you no matter if you want it or not

  • I think long-term

  • It's actually gonna be a really positive thing. people should be faced with losing

  • Everything a little bit more often because it really helps put a lot of things into perspective

  • and I

  • I mean I had kind of come to terms with the thought of like not only losing my life but losing everything that made up my

  • life and losing everything that made up me and

  • Waking up and feeling fine and feeling more like myself

  • is like the biggest relief of my entire life and

  • Everything just felt like it was shiny and beautiful and I was like, I can't believe I'm fine

  • So the six weeks of recovery is over today

  • Which means that I'm gonna get back to a pretty normal schedule

  • I'm obviously still not fully recovered, but I'm allowed to walk up and down stairs myself

  • and I am allowed to lift more than five pounds. So that's really exciting

  • Also last minute we decided to hire a documentary filmer

  • so I have a bunch of footage from before surgery around surgery and in recovery

  • and we still haven't figured out what to do with that, but there might be

  • Something down the line. Well, we'll see. it's so good to be back

  • Thanks for like

  • going through this super weird experience with me

  • Having all of you in such a real and concrete way made it a lot more bearable.

  • I'd rate having a brain tumor

  • 2 out of 10 stars

  • It wasn't that great. But you know what they say about brain tumors

  • They really grow on you. I'm so sorry. It's such a bad joke. I can't.

  • Blame Bryan for that joke. Ok. Byeee

So on my grocery list I have craniectomy,

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