Excerpt of Memoirs of a Comatose Brain Surgeon: Medical Thriller by Dr. Charles Benedict Lewison

“The operation was a raving success,” declared Doctor Puran
Singh as he unmasked his face and strutted proudly out to
the waiting room engaging the Leiberman family. He was the
neurosurgeon who stereotactically implanted and integrated
the speech brain- computer interface onto Jakes speech
cortex.

Dr Leiberman tolerated the procedure well. There is no
postop hematoma confirmed by intraoperative MRI. We had
identified the expressive speech area by intraoperative fMRI
and confirmed that the cathode array was precisely placed on
the functional speech cortex. Now all we have to do is
verify that the wireless speech signal transduction works
well. That’s your job Mark”.

He smiled at the entire family and patted Mark’s shoulder
who was studiously engaged in performing algorithmic
calculations on his mini -laptop.

“He’s in the Neurocritical care Unit. Let’s check him out
guys!” Dr. Singh offered with a wide grin.

Mark‘s heart raced. He was about to see if all those
algorithms worked out, and if for the first time in history,
speech could be simulated by merely thinking about words. He
also wanted to see if his life time of work would bring
comfort to his father.

At the foot of his father’s bedside he played with the
miniaturized computer and he tapped several codes into it
double checking the wireless connection with Jake’s
implanted cathode array. Ultimately, if this worked, this
tiny computer after it was programmed could be miniaturized
even further and implanted subcutaneously underneath his
scalp.

Even before the operation Jake began to display some small
surprising signs of improvement. At first he could only
blink his eyes, but then he began to regain control of his
extraocular eye movements so that he actually began looking
around by deviating his eyes left and right, up and down,
even though he couldn’t move his face or neck.

That was not uncommon in locked in syndrome patients. The
likelihood of him regaining more function was slim to none.

“OK dad,” he said after he put the final finishing touches
into the computer program in the presence of the entire
Leiberman clan anticipating hearing Jake speak for the first
time.

“Let’s test this baby out!” Mark gloated staring at Jake as
well as the tiny computer adjunct.

“Hi, can you say Hi?”

Jake blinked. No sound was emitted from the computer’s
speaker.

“Come on dad, concentrate!”

He blinked again.

Gayle’s heart sank in disappointment, and tears welled up in
her eyes. Jared and Suzy hung their heads down low.

Mark stroked his chin, typed a few more commands into the
computer, and said, “I bet this will work”.

“Dad say something!”

He blinked once.

Frustrated Mark shouted again “Dad this is important, say
something!” He yelled at the top of his lungs.

Piercing silence blanketed the room until out of the
computer speaker came the distinct and crisp words:

“I hear you; do you think I’m deaf or something?”

Jake’s voice echoed out from the speakers and sounded both
ghostly and robotic. It almost sounded like his voice
emanated from another world while still retaining his sense
of humor.

Gayle nearly collapsed out of happiness. She caressed Jake’s
limp arms, and said:

“I can’t believe this. How are you? Are you OK?”

“Yeah, it’s not too bad. I’m getting a lot of rest in here.”

“Do you remember what happened Dad?” Jared asked.

“When?”

Embarassed that he asked the question, not realizing that
his Dad was still semi- out of it, Jared said “Oh don’t mind
me. I just think it’s great to talk to you”.

“Idiot,” Suzy whispered to her brother elbowing him in his
abdomen.

“Dad can you feel me touching you?” Suzy asked as she
stroked his big toe.

“I think I can, but I can’t move anything.”

“We’re working on that dad,” Mark reassured his father
stroking his face. Now that they all knew he could feel,
they could provide him with much needed sensory stimulation.

“Some patients with locked -in syndrome have preserved
sensation,” Doctor Singh asserted. Your dad either never
lost it, or regained it. If he regained it, it would be a
sign of some natural neural restoration that very rarely
happens in patients with this syndrome”.

“My husband has always been a very rare person,” Gayle
joked.

Jake drifted off shortly after his debut performance. He
closed his eyes.

Dr. Singh looked at the accompanying EEG tracings. “Look at
all those delta waves. He’s in a deep sleep.”

He looked again. “Wow that was a quick transition. He now
has occasional alpha waves and central saw tooth waves
associated with dreams. Looks like he’s in REM”.

“Pleasant dreams honey,” Gayle said softly kissing him on
the lips.

His conscious strength ebbed away as an ebony veil
simultaneously cloaked his eyes. He felt as though an
oceanic tide was tossing him backwards into some sort of
ethereal time portal. None of it made visual or rational
sense. He had no control over it. As he sailed through this
oceanic space-time continuum embedded in his brain he
thought he heard Gayle’s distant beautiful comforting voice,
along with his children’s very recognizable muffled voices,
and a delightful chorus of happy laughter emanating from his
grandchildren. A warm glow warmed his heart and illuminated
his neurons as he journeyed to and fro upon the tidal waves
of time.