Music

Man plays saxophone during brain surgery

by Jesse Locke

Musician Carlos Aguilera (no relation to Xtina) recently underwent a successful brain surgery. While heavily sedated but still awake during the final stages of the 12-hour operation, the 27-year-old saxophonist from Malaga, Spain was handed his horn by doctors and asked to blow. The footage is pretty fantastic:

Patients in the waiting room may have mistaken Aguilera’s moody version of “Misty” for someone tuning into a local jazz station, but there’s actually an important reasoning for this unusual action. The Independent offers the following explanation:

Brain surgery patients can sometimes be left awake to provide input during the operation to help prevent unnecessary damage. The complex procedure involved in removing a brain tumour has been likened by doctors to ‘removing a spider from jelly’. The main body may be removed but a stray leg can be left behind. A patient under sedatives but not general anesthetic, such as Mr Aguilera, can offer responses during surgery to avoid removing too much or too little of the tumour.

You may or may not be surprised to learn that this is a fairly common practice. Back in 2013, a man played guitar during a similar procedure, and last year a woman played violin while surgeons inserted an electrode into her brain.

When he watched the video footage after the operation, Mr. Aguilera said he was “astonished.”

“It felt like lying on the beach,” he was quoted. “Two months ago, I was laid out on a stretcher and now I can say life is waiting for me as if I had been born again.”