Not sure you needed to be an artist to know that, but okay.
“Penguins, for example,” he said, “don’t have that same amount of facial variability. Most penguin faces look pretty much the same.”
“I wonder if the penguins would disagree,” I said.
He went on, “The location of your cavernoma was very close to an area in the brain called the fusiform face gyrus…”
He waited to see if I’d heard of it.
I hadn’t.
“It’s a deep temporal structure—a specialized area of the brain that allows people to recognize faces.”
I nodded and kept my eyes on my blanket.
He went on. “Humans have evolved highly specialized brain systems for recognizing faces, and most of us have near-photographic memories for them. The minute you see another human face, it triggers a flood of instant information about that person: name, profession, biographical data, memories you have together … and the fusiform face gyrus is crucial to that process.”
I nodded, like, Interesting. Like he was just telling me random brain facts.
Then he said, “Your cavernoma was located close to the FFG. Not in it and not touching it, but close.”
“Did you nick it or something? That’s why it’s not working?”
Dr. Estrera turned my MRI scan on the lightboard and circled on a gray area. “We believe the normal postsurgical swelling is pressing on the fusiform face area right next to it and causing some mayhem.”
“Causing some mayhem” seemed like a rather cutesy way to describe my situation, but I let it go. “What can we do about it?” I asked. “Ice it, maybe? Take some ibuprofen? Stop drinking water for a while and dehydrate myself?”
“There’s not much we can do about it,” Dr. Estrera said. “We just have to wait.”
“Wait?!” I didn’t have time to wait. “For how long?”
“People can vary quite a bit,” Dr. Estrera said pleasantly, like we were just chitchatting. “I’d say it’s likely to resolve in two to six weeks.”
Two to six weeks? I looked up. “I’m looking at you right now, and you’re like an upside-down Mr. Potato Head. Are you saying my brain could be doing that for six weeks?”
“I’m hoping it’ll resolve before that,” he said. “Assuming it does resolve.”
I felt a sting of adrenaline. “Assuming it does resolve?” I echoed. “Are you saying it might not resolve?”
“I think it’s very likely to resolve. Most postsurgical edema does. I can’t guarantee it, of course. But I’d be surprised if it didn’t.”
Okay, okay. “But assuming it resolves … what happens then? Everything goes back to normal, right?”
“Then…” Dr. Estrera said, “we’ll see.”
Come on, man!
He must’ve thought he was striking a balance between being comforting and not making promises he couldn’t keep. But since the possibility that it might not resolve hadn’t even occurred to me, he was absolutely doing the freaking opposite.
“I just don’t understand,” I said then, my panic making me a little breathless, “how you could explain every minuscule head-clamp detail to me, and every aspect of the hair-sparing technique, but somehow fail to mention that the brain surgery I just electively signed up for might ruin my ability to see faces.”
“This is a very rare outcome,” Dr. Estrera said.
“I thought you said it was totally normal!”
“Edema is normal,” he said. “But your cavernoma just happened to be very close to this particular very specialized area. The chances of this happening were infinitesimal.”
“Do you know what I do for a living?” I demanded.
The whole room waited. They did not.
My voice was rising, but I didn’t notice. “I am a portrait artist. I paint portraits! Of faces! For a living! What am I supposed to do now? What happens to my livelihood? I need my fusiform face thingy to be working!”
In the silence that followed, Dr. Estrera nodded with an apologies-for-the-inconvenience vibe.
I sighed.
I looked over at Dr. Nicole’s puzzle-piece face for some help—emotional or otherwise.
“There’s no reason that it shouldn’t resolve,” she said, taking my hand. “We’ll just be patient. And I will work with you to teach you some coping skills in the meantime.”
I let out a long breath. “Can I still go home tomorrow?”