Anthony Kulkamp Dias, a 33-year-old Brazilian bank worker, underwent surgery to remove a brain tumor and played his guitar the entire way through.
Dias played a selection of songs including The Beatles' “Yesterday” and a few Brazilian country songs while he was kept conscious during surgery at the Nossa Senhora de Conceição Hospital in the Southern state of Santa Catarina. In a press release about the procedure, the hospital said that surgeons were better able to map Dias' brain activity in real time if he was kept conscious, thus avoiding injury that could compromise important brain functions.
Machado explained that brain surgeries are usually performed with the patient under general anesthesia, but when the tumor is close to areas that can impact speech and movement, there's a risk of loss of function if they are injured during the procedure, so it is important to keep the patient awake.
In the video above, Dias plays a song he wrote for his newborn son, Emanuel. According to Brazilian news outlet G1, Dias discovered the brain tumor about two weeks after his son was born.
