Patient plays #saxofoon while surgeons remove brain tumor.
Music is not only an important part of Dan Fabbio's life, as a music teacher it is his livelihood. So when doctors discovered a tumor that was in the part of his brain that was responsible for music function, he embarked on a long journey with a team of doctors, scientists and a music professor and played saxophone while surgeons did their job with his brain.
Music teacher gets dizzy and nauseous
Fabbio's case is the subject of a study that sheds new light on how music is processed in the brain. In spring 2015, Fabbio served as a substitute music teacher at a school in New Hartford, New York. He was sitting in a small office at the school, when he suddenly saw and heard things he knew were not real. He got dizzy and nauseous and went to the hospital later that day. After they did a CAT scan, the doctors sat down with Fabbio and told him they found brain tumors in his head. The good news was that the tumor seemed to be benign, in fact it had probably grown slowly since childhood, and was in a part of the brain that was relatively easily accessible to surgeons. The bad news was that it was in a region known for being important to the music feature. Fabbio was referred to UR Medicine's Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience and Neurosurgeon Web Pilcher, MD, Ph.D.
