← All Of It with Alison Stewart
All Of It with Alison Stewart
Revisiting Alison's Conversation with Her Neurosurgeon
00:35:06
Remember when Alison had emergency brain surgery this year? Here is her story.
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- [00:04]
Randy D'Amico
Listener support, WNYC Studios.
- [00:16]
Alison Stewart
This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. As we finish out this year, we're going to talk about gratitude. Get ready to call in shortly about what you're feeling grateful for in 2024. I'm going to go first. I feel grateful to be here in 2024. I had brain surgery, and it was no joke. I spent five weeks in the hospital, months of therapy. Then there was another visit to the hospital. I have crazy meds and quite a bit of time of reflecting. The bottom line is I made it. The miracle of miracles is I wound up in the care of neurosurgeon Dr. Randy D'Amico. He and his extraordinary team saw me through and so did the folks at NYU Medical Center. It was a matter of luck that I would wind up with Dr. D'Amico, a tattooed bass playing MTV raised brilliant Dr. Who used modern technology to preserve my speech. Given what I do. I interviewed Dr. D'Amico when I went back on the air, and I'd like to share that conversation with you now. First of all, just so people get a sense of who you are, tell me where you work, what your role is, where you work.
- [01:33]
Randy D'Amico
Great. So my name is Randy D'Amico, and I'm a neurosurgeon at Lenox Hill Hospital, which is part of the Northwell Health System. I'm a brain tumor and spine tumor specialist there, and I'm a neurosurgeon.
- [01:44]
Alison Stewart
When did you decide to be a neurosurgeon?
- [01:48]
Randy D'Amico
I've answered this question before, but it's I, if you ask my parents, I said I wanted to be a neurosurgeon in the second grade. But then when I got to college, really, and I was in these big classes with all these biology majors, I got a little bit overwhelmed and I went to nyu. So I was here in Manhattan, and It was the late 90s, early 2000s, and music was everywhere. And so I became obsessed with being in a rock and roll band. And so I kind of pulled away from biology and I went into neuroscience, which is a huge departure, I guess. But it was a little more of freedom and a little more creativity and I could think a little bit more, but I could also spend time playing music. And so I played music and I did all this other stuff for about four and a half years after college, and I was on tour in Europe with one of my bands, and I realized that this was not a forever job. And so I had a degree in neuroscience and I said, I'm gonna go home and be a doctor. And I went home and studied and I got good grades. And then I. In medical school, I realized I should. You know, I still love neurosurgery and I love the brain. It's always been this common theme. And so I dove right in.
- [03:02]
Alison Stewart
What skill does it take to be a good neurosurgeon? Any good neurosurgeon. What do you need to be? What do you need to be?
- [03:08]
Randy D'Amico
I think it's the same skills that any human needs, which is, you know, honesty and hustle. And so I think, you know, being able to tell people the truth about what's going on, being able to tell your colleagues the truth, being able to tell yourself the truth about what's possible and what's not possible. And then the hustle part is just the training for.
- [03:29]
Alison Stewart
It's rigorous, I'm sure.
- [03:31]
Randy D'Amico
And yeah, you're pretty busy and your day to day is busy. And so I think, you know, those two things make probably any human good, but they definitely, you know, work well with neurosurgery.
- [03:43]
Alison Stewart
You were born in Brooklyn? What part?
- [03:45]
Randy D'Amico
Well, I was born in Jamaica Hospital.
- [03:47]
Alison Stewart
Okay.
- [03:47]
Randy D'Amico
And I survived. So I think my family lived in Flushing at the time. And then my father's from Williamsburg.
- [03:54]
Alison Stewart
Yeah.
- [03:54]
Randy D'Amico
My mother's from South America, from Uruguay. And she moved to Williamsburg when she was like 10 years old. And they met. It's like one of these. They were involved very early and young in life. They're divorced now, so whatever that's worth.
- [04:09]
Alison Stewart
But Brooklyn, so what do you think about Brooklyn? Is in your practice, is in your neurosurgery practice? What did you learn in Brooklyn?
- [04:18]
Randy D'Amico
It's more than Brooklyn. It's blue collar American people and a South American woman who had to struggle against everything. It was four girls and my grandmother who came solo by herself with her four girls. And it's just, you know, life is just real. And there's no pretense. It's just this is what it is. And that, I think, is such a testament to what Brooklyn was like in the 80s, at least. You know, I don't remember it, obviously. 81, 82, 83, 84. But what my parents went through and what they had to do to get through it, and that carried over to where we lived. And, you know, it's so funny when you look at people who left Brooklyn at that time period. Everyone wanted to get out. Everyone was like, we gotta get out of Brooklyn. We gotta get out of Brooklyn. And then they all went to the same towns, whether it was Long Island, Staten Island, New Jersey. And so everyone we knew was from Brooklyn or from Staten island or from Long Island. You know, same people. And so the mentalities were there. They kind of permeated, you know, our little communities or our little microcosms. And it was just. No.
- [05:25]
Alison Stewart
My guest is Randy D'Amico. He is a neurosurgeon at Lenox Hill. He's my neurosurgeon. Do I get to call you my neurosurgeon now? All right, let's go back to February. Tell me about the call you got from an emergency room downtown about me. What did they tell you?
- [05:40]
Randy D'Amico
So the. I think it was a PA or the emergency room doctor. What happens is the phone rings, and I could be doing anything if I'm on call and it was after hours, I was probably just hanging out with my kids. And the transfer center lets me know they've got a consult from Greenwich Village. And the person gets on the phone and they're like, alison Stewart, you know, so and so, old woman who is a radio show host. And she was on the air and she, you know, had some difficulties with speech. And we brought her in and we got a CT scan. It showed a lesion. We don't know what it is. And it's actually funny because I remember specifically asking the doctor, Alison Stewart. Why does that name sound so familiar? I was like a radio show host. Like, what? Allison Stewart? Are you sure? Like, who is it? Like, whatever. And they just. They were just, I don't know, a radio show host, you know, and they just kind of blew it off. But I remember distinctly asking that and, like, perseverating on it. But anyway, so they told me that there's a person with, you know, a CT finding suspicious for, you know, the dreaded thing is always a brain tumor. And CT scans are not that granular. So they give us a big picture. So we know there's a problem, but we don't know exactly what it is. So in that setting, we discuss bringing you in for an MRI of your brain. And that's where kind of our story starts.
- [06:58]
Alison Stewart
When a patient comes in, what do you need to determine about the patient? Not me, but just generally in general.
- [07:07]
Randy D'Amico
So, you know, we learn to kind of figure out the history of what's going on. There's a lot in the context of a disease developing that tells you what that disease is, how you get to your diagnosis. And so you want to know when things started, what brought them on, how bad they are. Do they travel anywhere else. Is there anything else associated? How severe it is? How long it's been happening for? Is it intermittent or constant? And you want to know the medical history, Right? If you came in with this, and then you told me that you had a big seizure history, it might be a different story than someone who comes in who's a previously healthy person and shows up with a big problem. And so that's kind of what you need to know. There's fast ways to kind of get through everything about a person. And then I would say with experience, you just start putting it together and the story starts to unfold. Usually with you. You threw us for a loop.
- [08:04]
Alison Stewart
No doubt. We met and you suggested, okay, I need to see more. This is where this cool imaging comes in that you sent me. I still show people this. What were the names of the tests? What were you looking for? What kind of cool imaging did you get to see?
- [08:22]
Randy D'Amico
Yeah. So first and foremost, you come in and we check your labs to make sure there's nothing glaringly abnormal. And then we need an mri. And the initial MRI we do is with and without something called contrast, which is like a dye, and it typically lights up areas that are abnormal. And so we wanted to get an MRI with and without contrast with you. And then what we do at Lennox, which, you know, I'm actually. I was the first person in New York City to bring it into the city, is something called connectomics imaging. And we use a platform called Quick Tome. It's kind of an iterative improvement on something that we've been studying for the past 20 years. All right. Ever since FMRI functional MRIs, where we can have someone do a task and figure out their brain connectivity and something called dti, which looks at the actual fiber tracks in the brain. Ever since that's come out, we've made slow and steady progress. This is like an off the shelf version of this that is really intuitive and it makes it very easy. So you don't need to be a rocket scientist to be able to do it right. You can do it as a brain surgeon, but we really wanted that for you. And the reason for that is the spot that we saw on your brain was on the left side. And you are a right handed individual, I believe. And. And we know that the majority of people who are right handed store their language on the left side. And for someone like you, who's sitting here in this radio show booth, and with your history, which I learned from talking to you and confirming who I thought you were, that became incredibly Important to figuring out. And then that all together gives us an idea of, well, what's going on? How are we gonna get there? Do we need to go there? What's at risk? How can I sit down with you and be honest about kind of what the possibilities are? And then we also scan your body to make sure it's not something that came from somewhere else. Right. Especially when we're worried about brain tumors. We need to make sure that it's not one that comes from the brain or one that comes from the body and goes up there. And we were scared about that for a while.
- [10:20]
Alison Stewart
What was unusual in the MRI about what was going on in my brain?
- [10:24]
Randy D'Amico
Yeah. So you had a. You had a fairly sizable spot, about a three centimeter, if I remember correctly. Three and a half centimeter, kind of round area on the left side of your brain in a region called the frontal lobe, the lateral frontal lobe. And it was extending towards the ventricular system, which is this fluid filled space in the center of the brain. And it was enhancing. And in your age group, not to put. I won't call it out, but it's all good.
- [10:51]
Alison Stewart
I'm gen X, Go for it.
- [10:52]
Randy D'Amico
But in your age group, we start to worry about brain tumors, and that's what they look like. What was unusual about yours was it didn't look like they normally look. It was going a different direction. There's no way to make that make sense. But it wasn't following the traditional way that the white matter travels, which is how these cells in these cancers move. It had a little bit of what's called restricted diffusion, which is concerning always for an infection, not a tumor. But, but some of these tumors restrict diffusion. So it wasn't positive that it was one or the other. And so there were abnormalities with that. I mean, the abnormality itself was abnormal. But we see this before. I mean, this is what I do. There were components of it that raised the flag of like, something's weird. Something's weird. And not only that, you were just so healthy. You know, there was no precursor to this. There was no weeks of language difficulties prior to this. This was a, you know, I was.
- [11:49]
Alison Stewart
Talking, I was working out with my trainer that morning.
- [11:51]
Randy D'Amico
Yeah.
- [11:52]
Alison Stewart
And then at 5:30, just lifting weights, carrying on. And then it just went downhill. Slowly, slowly, slowly.
- [11:58]
Randy D'Amico
Yeah, Unreal, Unreal.
- [12:00]
Alison Stewart
And I was in good health because I had been at a workup for a kidney donation.
- [12:04]
Randy D'Amico
Yeah.
- [12:05]
Alison Stewart
Within a year.
- [12:06]
Randy D'Amico
Yeah, I always bring that up. Well, I have to tell you this though. Your kidney donation story, which I don't know if the listeners know about this. You gave your kidney, you know, to your sister. Your kidney donor story, in my mind, makes you a higher risk for having brain cancer because nice people get bad problems, and it's a common theme. And actually there's a book, Peter Attia, in that book, outlive, he even references that. There's been studies about this. People with ALS have a certain, like, personality characteristic. And I don't know, look, it might all be voodoo, but nice people get big problems. And you were extremely nice, extremely calm, and had just given your kidney to your sister, which to me checked every single box of. Well, you know, this is brain cancer.
- [12:56]
Alison Stewart
A little worried about that.
- [12:57]
Randy D'Amico
Yeah.
- [12:58]
Alison Stewart
You know, how did my revelation to you that I talk for a living, this is what I do. And now that I know you're in a band, I know you watched mtv, so you got. You got the image of what I do for a living. How did that change the way you thought about the brain procedure?
- [13:15]
Randy D'Amico
Yeah, so. Yes. So once I realized, you know, once you were en route to Lenox Hill in the ambulance, and I googled Alison Stewart again because I was like, this name sounds too familiar. And radio and whatnot. And then I was like, oh, it's Alison Stewart. I grew up with you. Actually, the other day, like, three days ago, out of nowhere, on, like, my TikTok or something, was your coverage of Lollapalooza.
- [13:42]
Alison Stewart
It's in a documentary.
- [13:44]
Randy D'Amico
Yeah. And you're hanging out with Sonic Youth and Pavement and all these bands that I love. And I'm just like. I was like, oh, my God, I forgot, like, all this stuff. And so it was just like, you know, once that clicked and I realized where this was and what was going on, that's when the imaging of the connectomics, the imaging of your language system became so absolutely paramount. You know, we talk about. And again, you don't have a brain tumor. Right. But I'm going to use brain tumor as the reference here because that's kind of how we planned your whole surgery. We didn't know what you had. But quality of life is so important. And actually, when we take people's language away, which we do sometimes, right. If a surgery is imprinted, if the tumor's involved in these areas, sometimes it's unavoidable, or sometimes the surgical procedure itself injures something that causes a language problem, those people don't do as well. So preserving that foundation of your brain function, of what makes you a human being is so absolutely critical to a Good clinical outcome and to your quality of life, which probably matters more than saying, well, you lived five years in a wheelchair unable to speak. I think that changes how we think about these things. And so when your job is literally speaking and reading and language and conveying these things to people, and you've had an incredible career doing this, and all of a sudden is threatened. I mean, I should be asking you how it felt, but for me, it's a frickin. It's a gun aimed at my head. And it's just like, don't mess this up, man. Let's figure out how to do this the safest possible way.
- [15:18]
Alison Stewart
And your suggestion was we should do it. And we'll wake you up, Alison. We'll have you be awake for part of your surgery. What was the thought process behind that?
- [15:31]
Randy D'Amico
Well, complete shock and awe.
- [15:33]
Alison Stewart
It work?
- [15:34]
Randy D'Amico
I mean, tell you there's something in your brain, tell you you need a brain surgery, and then I'm going to wake you up and talk to you in the middle of it. I mean, no, I think, you know, there's so. Our imaging, we've made so many advances over the past. You know, I would say 50 years in this. The best way to ensure that you're going to have a perfect outcome is to keep you awake. Because our electrophysiology is, if you think about it, it's just not up to par yet. Right. Language is this incredibly complex thing. It's not just a telephone, sends a message from this mic to that mic or this phone to that phone. It is the ability to hear, interpret, put into your memory banks and understand what's being said, send it back to your vocal cords and your lungs and coordinate an effort to produce speech that also means something. Or it's visualizing words on a page and understanding how that all lays out. It is this incredibly complicated system that, unfortunately, where we're at right now, putting just an electrical probe on the brain and recording a signal is going to tell us that you're talking and that you understand all those things. So I need you awake for that. The benefit there is that you are a young woman, and as I've told you, young women do awake brain surgery better than anyone I've ever seen. And I would love, at some point, and maybe even today's the day, to know what goes through your head. Like, where do you find the courage to say, whatever you need to do, I'll do it?
- [17:02]
Alison Stewart
I decided, well, it wasn't going to go away. It was in my brain. That's the first Thing, and I decided that you knew what you were doing. I'll be frank with you. I have friends who work at other hospitals. They got phone calls. When they found out what was up with me, they said, get her out of there. We'll go to another hospital. My sister and I talked and we said, no, you're in the right place. This dude knows what he's doing.
- [17:24]
Randy D'Amico
Yeah.
- [17:25]
Alison Stewart
Even after you said I'd be awake. So this dude knows what he's doing. And that was it. It just had to get done.
- [17:32]
Randy D'Amico
Yeah. Yeah. And I appreciate that because I learned so much from every single patient encounter. And so, you know, being able to get insight into what makes a human suddenly find it's an incredible. I'll tell you something. I'm terrified of surgery. I've never had surgery. I think about it all the time. What surgeries would I have or what wouldn't I have? And the ability to. I don't even think you blinked. I was like, I need you awake. And you said, okay. And you could barely talk, so you probably just nodded at me.
- [18:06]
Alison Stewart
Yeah.
- [18:07]
Randy D'Amico
Yeah. I don't know if people realize the extent to which you couldn't talk.
- [18:10]
Alison Stewart
I couldn't talk. That's. Yeah, we're coming to that. It's. Well, first of all, this is Randy Amico. Dr. Randy Amico. He is my guest. We're talking about neurosurgery. My neurosurgery. Yeah. As I got into the hospital, it really went off a cliff in about two days. I really couldn't really. I couldn't communicate. I could with my eyes. I knew what was going on. Although that slowly deteriorated. Right. Right before the surgery, it really went off a cliff. We'll have more with Dr. Randy D'Amico after a quick break. This is all.
- [18:41]
C
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- [19:14]
D
I'm erin Moriarty of 48 Hours, and of all the cases I've covered, this is the one that troubles me most. A bizarre and maddening tale involving an eyewitness account that doesn't Quite make sense. A sister testifying against a brother, A lack of physical evidence. Crosley Greene has lived more than half his life behind bars for a crime he says he didn't commit. Listen to Murder in the Orange Grove, the Troubled case against Crosley Greene. Wherever you get your podcasts.
- [19:54]
Alison Stewart
You are listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. Let's get back into my conversation with Dr. Randy D'Amico. He was a neurosurgeon who performed my 2024 surgery at Lenox Hill Hospital. Let's listen. So we decided to go ahead, have the surgery. Gonna keep me awake. It was a whole different vibe once you got to the surgery. Like it becomes spaceship time. It's white and it's glistening and it's all the silver, and I can't. You were playing music.
- [20:31]
Randy D'Amico
Yeah.
- [20:31]
Alison Stewart
What were you playing?
- [20:32]
Randy D'Amico
I don't remember, but I have a great songs playlist that's like 53 hours of music. And I probably. It's mostly 90s, so I probably put it on for you or I asked you.
- [20:42]
Alison Stewart
I can't remember.
- [20:43]
Randy D'Amico
Yeah, I forget. Who would you have said? If you think about it now, I.
- [20:46]
Alison Stewart
Probably would have said if I had to listen to something, I can't remember if you.
- [20:49]
Randy D'Amico
If it was right.
- [20:50]
Alison Stewart
And it sounds terrible to say because part of me realized this is it. Like, this could be the last time I wake up.
- [20:55]
Randy D'Amico
I would never let that happen.
- [20:57]
Alison Stewart
I know. But you never know. You never know could happen. I probably would have said, oh, that's a good question. What? I said, I can't move, so I can't dance, so I can't have any. I don't know what to think about that one.
- [21:11]
Randy D'Amico
Think about it. Cause once you say it, I'll remember it. But it was definitely 90s. It was definitely rock and roll.
- [21:16]
Alison Stewart
It was rock. It was rock.
- [21:17]
Randy D'Amico
It was rock and roll. Without a doubt. And I would have catered to you. Cause it was probably on my list anyway. But it is an important question.
- [21:25]
Alison Stewart
So once you. You said to me, you have great hair. We're not gonna mess with your hair. Which cracks people up. Cause they're like, hey, where's your scar? I'm like, you can barely see it. You. What do you. I don't know what you do first. What do you do first? You just like cut open the skin. You put me to sleep. You put me to sleep. Yes. And then you cut open the skin. Right. You cut open the brain.
- [21:45]
Randy D'Amico
Yeah.
- [21:46]
Alison Stewart
And what were you looking for?
- [21:47]
Randy D'Amico
So a few things about this, first of all, taking you for an awake surgery was risky because you weren't speaking. And so what I told you before the surgery, which worried me a ton, was that I'm not going to know if you're not talking right because of the problem that we have, or you're not talking right because of the surgery that we're doing. And so the connectomics guidance allowed me to kind of look for these things. And the one thing we were going to have to test and sort of rely on is something called speech arrest, where we stimulate a part of the brain and you stop talking, because even though what you were saying wasn't the best, you were producing speech and we could understand you and there was someone right in front of you who would be able to say, she's doing it, she's not doing it. The hard part was being able to understand if you were saying the wrong words, which happens sometimes. We get these things called paraphasic errors where someone can't say the right word that is necessary or something called a semantic paraphasia where they say something similar and you didn't know and you were kind of in there. That's what you were sort of doing. And so that was very, very worrisome. But we put you in the room, we position you in a special position. I put everyone on their side for this so that your head can stay looking straight ahead. I do not cut hair at all. I part it in the direction of the incision. We go through the skin, we have to take a piece of bone off, and we use a special GPS system for the brain in order to do that. So we map out everything that we need. And in your case, because we were worried about having a brain tumor, we prepare always for if the tumor were to come back. So your incision is much bigger than it ultimately needed to be. Spoiler free, you know, no spoilers. But. But it was in case this was a tumor and we would have to go back one day. So we open that up, we open the bone. There's a covering of the brain called the dura, which is a hard, leathery covering that we open up as well. And then we're staring at your brain and it's sitting there pulsing. And we saw an area that looked a little bit abnormal, but we knew that everything that was wrong was deeper than that. And so then rather than jump on what looks bad, we have to map you out. And that's when we wake you up. And so we bring you with us in the operating room and then you Start talking. We have you perform a bunch of tests, which I don't know if you remember them or not.
- [23:56]
Alison Stewart
I did not. I did not like being awake. I will tell you. It's hard. I didn't care for it. I was like, will they finish? Will they finish? Will they finish already? Let me just go back to sleep.
- [24:06]
Randy D'Amico
What do you remember of it?
- [24:07]
Alison Stewart
I remember Dr. Yaffe, who's a neuropsychologist talking, who my son refers to as the hottie. I'm like, really? Your mom's dying here. This is possibly a brain tumor, and you want to know more about the hottie?
- [24:19]
Randy D'Amico
That's what he's doing.
- [24:20]
Alison Stewart
Yeah. Dr. Yaffe, she asked my name. She wanted to know where I am, what's happening to me. Does that sound right? The kind of thing she asked?
- [24:31]
Randy D'Amico
Yeah, yeah. And then she'll usually have you read flashcards if you can. And sometimes we'll have you just complete the sentence. There's naming tasks, and then sometimes we'll just let you riff. And, you know, that's kind of what I needed for you because I thought the naming tasks were gonna be very difficult at the time. What about your head? How did your head feel? Was it painful?
- [24:54]
Alison Stewart
It wasn't, but I knew that it was open. Yeah, I knew that it was.
- [24:58]
Randy D'Amico
It was, like, breezy.
- [24:59]
Alison Stewart
Yeah, like breezy, kind of a little bit. A little bit. So you took out. You found the mass. You took it out. You sent it to be something called a frozen section. Frozen section. You found out. Not cancerous, not tumor, but two infections that just got together and exploded.
- [25:20]
Randy D'Amico
Insane.
- [25:21]
Alison Stewart
I can't even say one of them. I think it might be psychological. I can't even say the name of it. What had the infections or what have they done to my brain?
- [25:33]
Randy D'Amico
It's a great question. So the way infections in the brain work is some microorganism seeds in there somehow, and we still don't know where yours came from. Commonly we see this in people with recent dental procedures or chronic dental problems. We see this in IV drug users, which I had asked you extensively, and you remained firm that you didn't.
- [25:56]
Alison Stewart
I remain firm.
- [25:59]
Randy D'Amico
And people who maybe get like, a weird open sore somewhere where basically, where a microorganism can get in your blood or if you have problems with your heart, you have valves, they're called vegetations, on the valves of your heart. And so once the bacteria gets in there, though it's bacteria. It does what it does. It just. It eats, it feeds, and it grows, and it replicates, and it Creates pus. And this was kind of eating away in your brain. And this area that thankfully wasn't super important until it became super important. Right. As it got big enough and swelled enough and caused worse swelling. That's when you found out about it by having a symptom. And so we fortunately didn't have to remove a mass. What we had to do is drain you to reduce the pressure on your brain and then take a little bit of a margin of that. And you're correct. The frozen section in the operating room, it said not tumor, which was fantastic. We were really, you know, worried. Very worried. And then. Yeah. And so that's what it does. But it's a destructive process. And so what's incredible about you is that. And I imagine it's because your job is language. And I imagine it's because you are a profuse reader. Right.
- [27:17]
Alison Stewart
You read.
- [27:18]
Randy D'Amico
I think you had four novels with you in the hospital.
- [27:20]
Alison Stewart
I did, yes.
- [27:21]
Randy D'Amico
When you couldn't talk to us, I remember coming in your room every day. And because of that, I think your language system is just probably more developed than others. And what's really remarkable is you just got a recent mri. And when we look at the functional connectivity of your brain in that your right side has ramped up, and I think it's taken over, and that's why your language is back and better. And we saw those redundancies early in.
- [27:45]
Alison Stewart
The other side of the brain. That was interesting.
- [27:47]
Randy D'Amico
Yeah. And so. And I think it's even more now than it was. So we're gonna probably try to quantify that in some way. I'll keep you posted on it.
- [27:56]
Alison Stewart
So when I woke up, I was weak on my right side, and there had been some brain loss, and I really couldn't speak in a serious way. I mean, up until about six weeks ago, really couldn't speak. Great. I still can't speak. Sweet. I'm really concentrating to talk to you. You seemed sort of unfazed, but maybe that's your job, to be unfazed. But I couldn't tell if that was your professional face. Were you or were you not?
- [28:26]
Randy D'Amico
I think I warned you before that you were gonna get worse before you got better, because we were gonna get close. And how you are in the operating room is how you will be after the surgery, unless there's a stroke that develops in a delayed fashion. And when we finished that operation, you were talking, and you were talking the same way you were before the operation. And we knew it wasn't a tumor, so we didn't have to go further. But we didn't. You know, we. The goal of any surgery is to keep you as you are before you go to that operating room. So I knew you were going to wake up the way you were. So when you woke up and you couldn't talk, we know that you're going to get back. The brain is manipulated, it's angry, it's been stretched, it's been pushed on, and that's why you have the weakness. Also, we get an MRI that shows that there's no stroke in any of these key areas. So we know then that this is just due to the swelling in the brain from the manipulation. And so in those situations, I'm confident it's not a show. It's not. It's not B.S. it's. It's really. And it goes back to kind of that honesty and hustle about what makes this job real. I will. I would have told you. I would have said, that's not coming back or we're gonna have to wait and see. I really don't know. But when I close your skin in the operating room and you're talking to me, you will talk after surgery. It may take some time, but you will. And so that's where we were. And, you know, it's a long road. I can't believe, you know, it's six months and you're still going to keep recovering.
- [29:48]
Alison Stewart
Yeah, yeah. Lenox Hill was featured in the Netflix documentary. Why do you believe it's the right place for someone who shows up needing neurosurgery, Someone like me?
- [30:01]
Randy D'Amico
That's a great question. I think that neurosurgery is the kind of. It's a testament to the old boys club. It's a profession where there haven't been that many women allowed to participate. And it's getting better, don't get me wrong. But it were these larger than life individuals who were willing and able to do some pretty unique and crazy things. Right. But they paved the way to make a safe place where we can do surgery safely. Right. And you're a testament to that. Now, the leadership at Lenox Hill, John Boockfar and Dave Langer. Dave Langer started the program, brought in John Bokfar, who's my senior partner. They're just. They're not old boys. They're innovative and they embrace that. And they're not trying to do the same thing that was done for the past 40 years. They're actively looking for people like me who are coming in there. And maybe it's the PUNK rock background But I come in there and I say, well, that's the old way to do it. What's the new way to do it? Or how are we gonna fix. How are we gonna change this? Or how are we gonna make it better? And they encourage that. And, you know, it's a smaller department than what you're gonna see, but the culture of the place is so conducive to working together. I mean, you met John Bockville when you were there. I brought him down to meet you just because I don't have a lot of gray hair. So I figured you might trust this guy more than me. But, you know, he. We're partners and we're colleagues and we work together, and it's a team sport, and there's no, you know, egos in it. It's just kind of like we want to show everyone how good what we're doing here is. And so we're going to do this as a team so that everyone sees that. And then we have, you know, the resources of Northwell Health. It's a Northwell hospital. Northwell is this massive behemoth of healthcare. And when you have resources like that, all of a sudden your kind of crazy ideas, they got some legs, right? Because you can go to people and say, hey, I've got a valid argument. And so for connectomics, for instance, this is something again, it's fairly novel in the neurosurgery space in the past year. Slightly before you, but definitely after you. I've secured about $150,000 in research funding for this.
- [32:09]
Alison Stewart
Oh, great.
- [32:11]
Randy D'Amico
And this is going to move forward. We'll probably start a center for this, you know, focused at Lennox first, and then branch out. And there's more about this that can benefit patients, right? We thought you were a brain tumor. You were a brain infection, right? You were a person who needed a brain surgery. But what about stroke patients, right? What about our neurodegenerative patients, our epilepsy patients? Anyone with a brain problem, this might benefit even anxiety, depression. And so when you know everything about how things work and how they change with treatments or with. With progression or with whatever, then you can start thinking about how you're going to treat it. And so I'm hoping that this opens up a novel way to think about all these diseases and kind of target the future.
- [32:51]
Alison Stewart
Did I. Anything you want to add, anything you thought about, anything you've wanted to.
- [32:56]
Randy D'Amico
I wish I could do this with every single patient, I swear to God. Because I. It's. I need the Background. Right. Like, you haven't talked enough about it. You've asked me a lot about it, but you walked into a hospital on any random day of your life and you were told there's something in your brain. It may be cancer. You need to have awake surgery on your brain.
- [33:19]
Alison Stewart
Yeah.
- [33:20]
Randy D'Amico
Even though we're not going to cut your hair, you're going to be in the hospital, you're going to lose your speech for a period of time, and we don't know if it'll come back, but we're pretty confident. Pretty confident. You've got a kid, you've got a job, you've got a career that involves language. Like, what did you go through? That, to me, is way more important.
- [33:40]
Alison Stewart
Tune in tomorrow. Yeah, it was a lot. It was a lot. It made me think. Well, it made me think about what's next if it doesn't come back.
- [33:53]
Randy D'Amico
Yeah.
- [33:54]
Alison Stewart
And I hadn't really thought about that because this has been such a grind this past five years, getting the show on the air and getting it to the place we want it to be, to have to put my brain on it, pardon the pun, to think about. Well, what would the next few years look like? I don't know yet. I haven't been. You know, it hasn't been a year. I'm starting to stutter a little bit talking to you. We're good 30 minutes in, so it'll be interesting to see what happens. I don't know. All I know is that I had a great life. And if it meant that this part of it was over, it was okay. You were my. You gave me. You gave me my life back. So I'll take what I get. I'll go that way.
- [34:36]
Randy D'Amico
It's amazing. What about the relief of hearing it wasn't cancer?
- [34:39]
Alison Stewart
That was a big relief. That was a huge relief. I thought it could be. Yeah.
- [34:45]
Randy D'Amico
It could have been.
- [34:47]
Alison Stewart
Yeah.
- [34:47]
Randy D'Amico
And there's a lot of people out there facing it, and they make the same decisions you do. You did, which is I'm gonna do awake surgery. They don't blink. And I see it every day, and it's. It's a testament to what I find. I learn a lot about humanity through watching my patients go through things. And gratefully, you know, I haven't had to deal with it myself, but I know at some point I will, whether it's my kids or my wife or myself or my parents or whatever. And so I learned so much from watching you guys, my patients, go through this. What's amazing to me is you Know that six months of recovery, that you still have more to go.
- [35:26]
Alison Stewart
A lot go a little ways to go.
- [35:28]
Randy D'Amico
But at least you're here, right?
- [35:29]
Alison Stewart
Yeah. I mean, we're gonna try. We're gonna try. This is gonna be the summer of grace for me and for listeners. What were the name of your band first?
- [35:36]
Randy D'Amico
I'm never telling anybody, ever.
- [35:37]
Alison Stewart
You're not telling me.
- [35:38]
Randy D'Amico
All right, Don, I think you can Google it. I wouldn't, but I think you can.
- [35:43]
Alison Stewart
Okay, got it. And when do I get to call you Randy?
- [35:46]
Randy D'Amico
You can call me Randy.
- [35:47]
Alison Stewart
I can call you Randy.
- [35:48]
Randy D'Amico
You have my cell phone. It's on your email, probably. You can just call me whenever.
- [35:50]
Alison Stewart
Okay.
- [35:51]
Randy D'Amico
It's fine.
- [35:52]
Alison Stewart
My guest has been Dr. Randy D'Amico. He's been my neurosurgeon. I thank you so much. Thank you for coming in. Thanks for everything.
- [36:00]
Randy D'Amico
I thank you for having me. This is incredible.
- [36:04]
Alison Stewart
Thanks again to the many people on my team who helped make it possible. And yes, if you're wondering, is that the guy you see in the subway ad sporting high end scrubs. Yes. Yes, it is. We'll be back with what you're grateful for.
- [36:19]
D
So many options for toilet paper, quintuple ply. This roll is titanium enforced. This one is made from elderly trees. Is that good?
- [36:27]
C
Just grab Angel Soft.
- [36:28]
D
It's simple, soft and strong.
- [36:30]
Alison Stewart
And for any budget. Angel Soft.
- [36:32]
Randy D'Amico
Soft and strong.
- [36:33]
Alison Stewart
Simple.
- [36:34]
E
Once upon a time, Amazon Music met audiobooks, and listeners everywhere rejoiced.
- [36:40]
Randy D'Amico
Oh, yeah.
- [36:41]
E
Because now they could listen to one audiobook title a month from an enormous library of popular audiobook titles, including Romantasy, Autobiographies, True Crime, and more. Suddenly, listeners didn't mind sitting in traffic or even missing their flight. Amazon Music Unlimited now includes Audible Download, the Amazon Music app. Now to start Listening Terms apply.