← Post Reports
Post Reports
Deep Reads: A songwriter had part of his brain removed. The music flowed.
00:21:27
Mike Frazier had no idea that the source of his stomach pains and mental health struggles was a condition that affects tens of millions of people worldwide. After surgery, his approach to making music changed.
Loading summary
Transcript50 lines
- [00:00]
A
It's been so long. How have you been? Hello? I'm doing well, Dave. Why? Why are you talking that way? Please say one for a compliment or two for a question. Yeah, this is weird. I think I'm gonna go. Talking with an automated phone tree can feel pretty ridiculous. That's why when you call Pacific Source.
- [00:17]
B
Health Plans, you'll get a real person to answer all your important questions. Pacific Source Health Plans.
- [00:22]
A
This is a real person.
- [00:24]
B
How can I help you? Human service, not automated phone trees. Find a plan@pacificsourcemembers first.com hi, I'm Michael.
- [00:31]
A
Laris and this is PA Reports Weekend. It's Saturday, September 6th. I'm a local enterprise reporter, and what you're going to hear in a moment is a story I wrote about a musician who had brain surgery for a condition that affects more people than you think. I'll be narrating it. You'll hear audio from my phone calls with Mike Frazier's doctors. And when I talked with Mike, his guitar in hand, at a picnic table in Rock Creek park in Washington, D.C. this reporting is part of a Washington Post series called Deep Reads. It's part of our commitment to narrative journalism. This story is about a songwriter born in Virginia who faced an agonizing medical mystery. A note to listeners. This story includes descriptions of medical procedures that can be a little graphic. Okay, here's the story. The songwriter was unconscious, but his voice filled the operating room, spent their summers together. Mike Frazier's dirty blond locks had been partially shaved and his head sanitized. The surgeon standing over him slid his blade in a crescent over his right ear and tugged his scalp into position, holding it in place with a dozen sky blue clips. Then he began opening a window into the musician's brain.
- [02:01]
B
So she moved to the northern country.
- [02:05]
A
The surgeon, Lee Selznick, had chosen a Spotify playlist of Frasier's music for the delicate procedure. It would take three hours, and he would later marvel at that moment over the phone.
- [02:15]
C
You know, we were. We were deep in his head and listening to the words right out of his the very part of him that was producing that beautiful music.
- [02:41]
A
The task that day was to reach and remove the cause of the grievous pain that had besieged and mystified Mike for years. After almost a decade as a folk rock singer with a rollicking vibe and knack for storytelling, piercing stomach pain had stymied his songwriting and drawn him into a dangerous depression before he turned 30. The craft that brought him such meaning, writing exuberant anthems protest songs and intimate tunes about love and family. Desert stars and escaping to Alaska had become a slog, and he couldn't reach the end of some of the songs. He started removing a piece of his brain about half the size of his fist, Mike and his doctors thought was his best option for combating a condition that affects about 1% of adults in the United States and and tens of millions of people worldwide. But that is still often misunderstood and misdiagnosed. Selznick said that some people are hesitant to go through with brain surgery.
- [03:36]
C
It's operating on your brain. It does everything for you. It is you. And so people with symptoms, they're afraid. If you do a surgery, you remove part of the brain, you're removing a part of yourself.
- [03:50]
A
The surgeon hoped it would allow Mike to regain who he was meant to be. Mike was driving down Interstate 395 in Virginia, headed for a funeral, when it struck. He thought, oh, my God, I'm dying. It felt like he was stabbed in the gut. But the terrifying wave passed, and back in 2022, he settled on an explanation. It must have been a panic attack. During the following two years, the excruciating stabbing episodes became a paralyzing part of his life, eventually happening almost every time he ate. Doctors suggested it could be a digestive ailment, maybe acid reflux, but that didn't account for the severity of what he experienced or his broader descent. People called him sunshine. As a kid in high school in Virginia, he and his best friend, Stephanie Bruno, whom he would later marry, were jointly named most likely to brighten your day. But the lack of answers, let alone solutions for his debilitating pain, fed a darkness that seemed to be devouring the life he loved, including his songwriting. Sometimes it felt like he couldn't come up with a single line. As time passed, the symptoms worsened. Paranoia began to bleed into the rest of his life, from making music to serving customers. At his winery job in Seattle, where he and Steph had moved, the dread of the pain that might follow any meal seemed to spread, and he became haunted by imaginary dangers. He'd loop around the block three times, terrified he had run someone over. He feared he might blurt out something unhinged while performing or end up in some kind of fight. One night, he kept looking at his Boston terrier, Cannoli, terrified something horrible might suddenly happen to her. Later, at a picnic table in Washington, D.C. he remembered the feeling.
- [05:42]
B
I did have that feeling of like. I feel like I've lost every essence of my mind. I don't know what's going on at all.
- [05:54]
A
He frantically called and texted Steph, who was in Virginia. He turned to her, desperate and suicidal.
- [06:00]
B
She's literally, I'm calling her. She's talking me off the ledge, and I am like, what the is wrong? Why can't I eat? Why do I feel sick every time I eat?
- [06:10]
A
She eased him through his terror that night, as she had done before, and he thinks she saved his life. About a week after that episode, he was meeting a family friend back in his hometown of Winchester, in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. They were together to share memories of their godfather. After his funeral, Mike had taken to subsisting mostly on plain yogurt, apples and other bland food, trying but failing to keep the attacks from flaring. His lunch companion, Ben Heathcote, watched for about a minute as Mike's jaw went slack, his expression went blank, and his hand started convulsing. Mike felt a wave of nausea he thought lasted only a second or two, then picked up the conversation where they left off. Heathcote was startled, though he didn't say anything right then. Alarm bells went off, and that night they talked about what happened. Early the next morning, Mike had an MRI and got in to see Paul Damian Lyons, a neurologist who has practiced for more than 20 years in Northern Virginia. With electrodes stuck to Mike's scalp, the roaring pain that had been haunting him returned. At that exact moment, Mike's brain made a powerful recording of its own, one that answered the question that had eluded him. Lyons was able to pinpoint an area of Mike's brain where a cluster of nerve cells was misfiring. The brain is a mammoth network of about 86 billion neurons, cells that communicate using electrical and chemical signals to shape a person's thoughts, emotions, and actions. The routes followed by those signals as the mind goes about its endless tasks are called circuits, and one of Mike's had gone haywire. When the delicate balance of those signals gets disrupted, experts say it can lead to epilepsy, and that was Mike's diagnosis. The condition is marked by recurring seizures that can range from brief and subtle to convulsive and severe, and that can bring an increased risk of death. Despite numerous medical advancements, ignorance and stigma associated with epilepsy have led many people to try to keep it a secret, while others, such as Mike, remain in the dark and miss out on an early diagnosis. The convulsive seizures in popular portrayals, where patients jerk erratically, biting their tongues, miss the more subtle cues that frequently characterize epilepsy Lyon said. One of Lyon's epilepsy patients simply became uncharacteristically quiet. Another, a senior citizen who became disoriented and had problems with language, was misdiagnosed with dementia. A third, a teenager, had seizures that mimicked psychosis, leaving her agitated, combative and confined in psychiatric hospitals for two years. Mike had premonitions of impending doom, along with the severe stomach problems that made it difficult to eat. In fact, those were all symptoms of seizures, Lyon said. Even with Steph's own epilepsy diagnosis years before, which followed obvious seizures, the couple hadn't considered Mike might be facing the same thing. About two thirds of people can achieve seizure freedom, as doctors call it, using one of many available medicines. Others who have drug resistant epilepsy can have surgery to remove or otherwise destroy the problem cells or can use an implant to treat them. Delaying a diagnosis can have serious consequences, Lyons said. Your brain can in essence, get good at seizures in the same way it can get good at playing the piano. Pathological learning, he called it. And he went on to describe how the brain learns epilepsy.
- [09:59]
C
So not all learning is good, right? There's pain, right? There's ptsd, there's addiction. Those are all circuitries of learning. So epilepsy is a circuit, like everything we do. The more circuits used, the better it comes and it's reinforced over time. But unfortunately, epilepsy, the more occurs, the more that circuit's used, the more effective the brain becomes at seizing, and that's the pathway of drug epilepsy.
- [10:23]
A
Mike's brain kept getting better at pulling him down. After cutting quarter size holes in his head, then using a bigger drill to connect the openings, Selznick lifted off a piece of Mike's skull. It was about the diameter of a teacup. He sliced through the protective membrane beneath, called the dura, then reach the bumps and grooves of Mike's brain. Mike chose to have surgery because doctors weren't sure whether the abnormal cluster of cells sparking his problems might be a slow growing cancer or caused by a congenital condition, the surgeon targeted the area with the misfiring cells toward the front of his right temporal lobe, just above his ear. Using handheld forceps with an electrical tip to melt tissue and prevent bleeding, there could be other irritable clusters of cells nearby contributing to Mike's pain, so Selznick removed those too. It's an area that manages smelling, tasting and digestion, so related symptoms are commonly paired with seizures. He stitched up the dura, reattached the piece of skull with Titanium screws and plates and closed Mike back up with 37 staples. Mike woke to what he called insane pain, partly from an incision affecting the muscle that controls his jaw. Selznick gave him a fist bump and said he sounded like Neil Young when he sang. It had all gone well. Mike's seizures and the stabbing pain that came with them were gone, and a biopsy would show the tissue was not cancerous. Still, he didn't understand the way his mind was working. After the operation, he initially couldn't figure out how to play his guitar. And he said he wasn't experiencing the sudden improvement in his mental health that he had expected.
- [12:09]
B
I just assumed, like, well, the minute they cut this thing out of my brain, like, oh, well, I know I won't feel depressed anymore. So that was a rude awakening.
- [12:21]
A
Music became a tool in his recovery and a way to process his trauma. Before the operation, I actually.
- [12:28]
B
I had the first line I had.
- [12:31]
A
He leaned on songwriting to try to capture the struggles and stirrings of hope that followed. He explored his mind being out of control in a song titled what's Wrong With Me? Then, amid sleeplessness and severe pain, he imagined dancing California Redwoods in a rousing follow up.
- [12:55]
B
And I'm just strumming my guitar, crying, being like, wow, this is crazy.
- [13:00]
A
A playful exploration of extraterrestrials came next.
- [13:03]
B
This one was just like me, leaning real heavy into the cosmic vibe.
- [13:09]
A
In one disturbing moment, he was sure he no longer sounded like himself, so he wrote that into a song, too. Then came a breakthrough. He first noticed something was happening in July last year while sitting outside reading Steph's recently published novel. He remembers ripping through 20 pages faster than he had ever read anything. Then, on another morning soon after, he woke up and, for the first time in his life, had an opening verse and melody waiting in his head. It was an anti war song. He had been writing songs since he was 13 and heard other songwriters talk about that happening to them. But he was deeply skeptical.
- [13:48]
B
Yeah, it was crazy. That's literally never happened to me. It's always been just like, puzzle pieces of like, okay, this verse might be cool, and then I'll write a couple more, and then I'll put this line here and this line there.
- [14:01]
A
But on this morning, the words and.
- [14:03]
B
Notes flowed, and, man, that was sweet. Like, I had never had that happen to me before.
- [14:13]
A
The operation had left him physically scarred and wrestling with recovery, but it was also freeing, he said. It felt like I literally had a blockage removed, you know? He recorded the start of the song on his phone so it wouldn't evaporate, Got himself to the couch and finished World Without Empires that morning.
- [14:31]
B
At that point I think I'm like firing. I'm like, reading is easier, writing is easier. Mental processing. I go in the kitchen, I start cutting up vegetables and I'm like, what the. I've worked in kitchens since I was 18 and I've never been able to dice an onion before. And so I'm feeling good about that. And I'm also like, what the hell?
- [14:53]
A
He launched into another song. Sun streaming through the bay window woke him up around 5am so he just started writing.
- [14:59]
B
So I continue writing the initial bones.
- [15:03]
A
For one day I'll find it came quickly he got them down in his notebook with his black pen Crying some of the way through.
- [15:11]
B
Years of pain with no reprieve Feel strange to have peace that kind of idea like, well now I feel all right I still feel it creeping in Start to panic yet again Thinking about how I almost lost my mind Thinking about how it breaks my heart each time Try to keep the doors locked the windows all shut tight holding out for something I know no One day I'll find.
- [16:04]
A
That became part of a ten song musical diary chronicling his healing. It was his seventh record. The effects on Mike's songwriting are likely rooted in some of the deeper complexities of epilepsy, his doctor said. There are many electrical problems that aren't as severe as a full blown seizure, but still leave a mark, Lyon said. Researchers using implanted monitoring devices found that patients who have one seizure a week might also have hundreds of small discharges every day of only a few seconds each. Those and even shorter blips may be significant enough on an electrical basis to cause poor cognitive function, he said. Mike's surgery likely removed that type of abnormal background signal, which could help explain the restoration and even sharpening he has described in his songwriting. Selznick, the doctor who removed the mass from Mike's brain, agrees is like being in a room with an incessant buzzing, he said.
- [17:00]
C
And then it stops. And you didn't even realize how stressful that was until it stops and you feel the sense of relief. And so it's kind of that phenomena going on. The other issue is this has been an exceedingly emotional affair for him with everything that he's been going through, thinking, you know, does he have something terrible going on like a cancer causing all this horrible pain? Just that sheer emotional response. I mean, he could be just on a high right now. You know, he's getting on with his life as a normal young adult again. So that that goes a long way too.
- [17:45]
A
Mike Frazier stood in a former jeans and overalls factory, packing up his guitar last fall when a guy walked over to see if he might be up for playing some more. He and a group of friends from D.C. were on a bonding trip to the Shenandoah Valley, and they had just made it to the Woodstock Brewhouse, hoping for some live music along with the Tipsy Squirrel Ale and other offerings. Mike said, hey, man, I'm tired. I had brain surgery a few months ago. Adam Gebermettin asked him why, and he told him, Gebermettin said, you're one of us. They were part of an epilepsy support group and and had no idea they would be listening to an artist that evening who shared their condition. As Mike plugged his guitar back in and started playing the songs he had written, sometimes through tears, he looked out at their long table and saw another member of the group sobbing. Mike said it was a cosmic moment. Gabor Meddin stood and began to cheer, turning around to see his friends faces. He recounted it later.
- [18:45]
C
Just like.
- [18:47]
A
You know, like open eyes.
- [18:48]
C
No blinks, just looking at him, listening.
- [18:52]
A
Members of the Cher meetup group had come together to discuss their epilepsy stories. Earlier that day, Geber Meddins became more severe after a drunk driver hit him on the sidewalk, smashing his head. It had gotten him fired from his job as a physical therapist. With bosses fearful of his seizures, he said seeing Mike up there, refusing to retreat from the music he loved, really moved him.
- [19:16]
C
It really did, like, change my thoughts on how I should not let epilepsy control me.
- [19:28]
A
A few months later, in April this year, Mike told Steph, it was the first day he woke up and didn't feel like he was in survival mode. He had made it through. Steph could see it coming. In the weeks before, she said, there was one day where I was like, mikey's back.
- [19:47]
B
Good evening everyone. How y' all doing? Thank you all so much for being here.
- [19:54]
A
A few days later, Mike released his latest record, April Days. It came out on April 25, a year to the day after his surgery.
- [20:02]
B
I'm gonna play a couple songs solo and I'm gonna bring to the band.
- [20:05]
A
And Mike came back to Winchester in May and looked out at the hometown crowd. Lee Selznick, his surgeon, sat across from the stage. Mike's parents danced up front and Steph came up to sing a few songs with him. He sang a haunting remembrance of his grandfather. Mike thanked his doctors for saving his life and ended with his own sing along. He then threw it to the crowd, which came through. He let his voice fade behind theirs. Then he left them with a question that seemed more like a declaration.
- [21:14]
B
We're going to heal our mind. Won't it be just fine? Thank you very much. Take care of each other out there. Save the earth and the world.
- [21:37]
A
Thanks for listening. Special thanks to Vivian Altstadt for her recording of Mike Frazier in concert at the Bright Box Theater. Again, my name is Michael Laris. I reported and narrated this story. Bishop sand produced the audio for this piece of.
- [22:00]
D
Think about why you listen to podcasts. It's like having a friend who makes you think or can help you wind down right? Well, the Washington Post has a lot of people you can turn to at any hour. You can read the most important and interesting stories. We can help you cook something delicious, give you advice on a tricky friendship. Rave about a movie or book that you shouldn't miss. When you become a Washington Post subscriber, you have a companion for whatever part of your day needs it most. Get it all for just $4 every four weeks. That's for an entire year. After that, it's just $12 every four weeks. Cancel anytime. Go to washingtonpost.com subscribe. That's washingtonpost.com subscribe.