SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - How A Hard Fall Can Lead To Holes In Your Head

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Your faithful columnist now has holes in his head.  

Through the years, I have written now and then about physical maladies I’ve suffered. 

This was a humdinger—I’m just out of out of Stony Brook University Hospital for the after-effects of a terrible accident. 

SPLAT!!!!! I fell hard on my left cheek on a tile floor in a motel room in Fort Lauderdale in January. I didn’t notice a leg on the bed sticking out, and I tripped over it in the dark. I never suffered a worse fall. I thought I fractured my cheek. But initially, other than having a black eye, there were no impacts. It happened after we went out to dinner with friends in Florida. The next day, Saturday, I was feeling OK and we went to lunch with other friends with whom I have worked on my TV show. Then we flew back to Long Island that afternoon. 

Still no impacts. Sunday we were home and Monday I had the every-six months bladder check-up I need to take.  The next week I began teaching journalism again at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury. Still, no impacts whatsoever.

Then, I had arranged a cataract operation for March 1 (I’ve been told I need this) and a couple of days earlier I saw my primary care physician, Dr. Allen Fein, a specialist in Family Medicine at Stony Brook University Hospital. Allen is also a friend. He said something was wrong—my gait was off, my retinas weren’t working the way they should, and he did other tests. His wife, Beverley, drove me to the emergency room at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital. There they found in a CTscan two giant hematomas, deposits of blood, on both sides of my skull.

I was taken by ambulance to the Emergency Room at Stony Brook University Hospital (was never transported by ambulance before.) There I was given a choice—surgery or the use of steroids which, I was told, work some of the time to reduce hematomas. But these were very big ones. Still I opted for the steroids as a less invasive procedure. 

Things seem to be getting better for a couple of weeks, but then the slow gait and other symptoms came back, and Dr. Fein and Dr. Charles Mikell, the neurosurgeon I originally saw at the Stony Brook Emergency Room, strongly recommended surgery—what is called a “burr hole” procedure in which little holes are drilled in the top of your head to drain out the blood produced by the hematomas.  It is brain surgery, but in between the skull and brain and so ostensibly less invasive. Still, I was scared as could be about someone putting holes in my head, and after I was informed of possible unexpected adverse impacts, even more frightened.  However, at this point, a friend, also a doctor, whose wife as a nurse was involved with a lot of “burr hole” surgery, told me it is the main route in dealing with hematomas. 

Furthermore, a follow-up CTscan showed only a 15% to 20% reduction in the size of the hematomas with the steroids. The Feins told me how one of their sons had a comparable accident in a snowboard crash and was successfully operated on at Stony Brook with this “burr hole” procedure.

I had an appointment the next day with Dr. Mikell, arranged earlier, and we drove through the snowstorm from Sag Harbor to see him. Dr. Mikell had my wife, Janet, and me compare the two CTscans, and you could see my head was still full of this mass which was putting pressure on my brain and could cause a seizure. 

Further, Dr. Mikell, a young fellow, a graduate of Princeton and Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons, said that with the snow it would be a good time to do the operation because Stony Brook was not too busy and he would be able to do it the next day. And that’s what happened. His team was highly proficient. I was left with tubes coming out of four holes in my head leading to two plastic containers collecting drained fluid from my head. It was extremely difficult functioning with the tubes and also the monitoring equipment all over my body. By far, it was the worst several days in my life. I didn’t know if I would get out of this life-threatening situation. 

But five days later, by Saturday, the hematomas had completely drained away. However, a CTscan showed that a spinal fluid deposit was now forming on the top of my skull. The doctors at Stony Brook were concerned as to whether this might increase. So they kept me under observation until Monday when a new CTscan found there was no increase. Flabbergasted and joyous, I was told I would be released. 

I will need follow-up medical attention. I’m not supposed to carry anything heavy, and there are other restrictions. The recovery time for this situation runs in the months. 

So that’s the (crazy and scary) story!!!!!

Incidentally, I have been told that this “burr hole” procedure goes back to cavemen time—that a caveman who was hit by another caveman on the head with a club would have holes drilled in his skull to drain off hematomas—that ancient skulls with such holes have been found. For me it wasn’t a caveman with a club—but a damn tile floor in a motel in Fort Lauderdale, not a caveman in sight.

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books.