Pioneering brain surgery ahead for 3News Senior Health Correspondent Monica Robins

Our senior health correspondent Monica Robbins is on the air every day with us, and she brings us all this health news that we can use. I don't even know why I'm crying, because you made me. But tonight, she becomes the center of the story once again. Yeah, once again, Monica is now facing what she's calling round three, I heard you at four o'clock, of her ongoing health battle. Our friend, our dear friend, and our close co-worker is preparing to head back for her third brain surgery, only this one is a bit revolutionary. And we're positive here. I'm supposed to be supporting her, and she's supporting me. Listen, I've been talking to her about this for over a month, and your attitude is incredible. I'm so going to make fun of you later. I can't wait. So will I. Yeah, I know. We'll share a good laugh. She has been so good lately, and then, you know, right when I climb up my ladder to get on this giant Everest high chair, she starts crying. Okay, ironically, folks, this one has nothing to do with my residual brain tumor, actually, you know, that just left the damage behind, what it left behind, actually. So my last two surgeries had to remove significant amounts of bone and tumor. Now, there's nothing holding my brain back. So it's essentially pushing my eye out of my head. But now, I will be the second post-operative patient to have a new type of implant designed just for my head. And the best way to show you how it works is to let you see inside my head. So I just want to warn you, I'm about to show you computer images of my skull. This is what my right eye socket looks like. This is what my brain tumor did to my left. You can see the difference in the area that we worked on in the past compared to the normal side. This is what the orbital roof and the lateral orbital wall would look like. And we've removed a lot of that. Residual brain tumor is still sitting on the back of my left eye and in what's left of my eye socket. My last surgery removed tumor-infiltrated bone around the socket, leaving open space. But that's allowing my brain to push my eye forward, causing pressure, pain, and other issues. The solution? Rebuild it. So by reconstructing it, we'll be able to reestablish a fixed and hard barrier so that your brain is no longer pushing on it and hopefully your eye can come back. Before now, there wasn't an option because there was nowhere to mount an implant. Now, thanks to 3D printing and a space-age polymer, Dr. Racinos can make a 3D image of my skull and create an implant bone replacement from those dimensions and essentially make a puzzle piece that will fit inside my head. We're able to have the orbital roof, the orbital sidewall, and the area of the craniotomy that's been removed all in one piece. So how does it stay in there? Will you glue it? No, we won't. So because we will remove some of this bone and the implant will take its place, we will fix it probably with some titanium implants that look like this. If I don't do this, what am I risking? We've been patient and conservative with you, and your symptoms, if anything, have gotten worse. I don't think that they're going to get better, unfortunately. Is this buying me more time? Yes, it is buying you more time. Remember what we talked about in terms of the goals. I do not plan on going inside the eye in a very aggressive way. So if there's tumor cells that are still located in the eye itself or in the covering of the eye, we're not going to address those. But yes, it does buy additional time. So again, this is just to improve my quality of life. It has nothing to do with brain tumor. Cleveland Clinic placed these implants in 14 patients who had original surgeries like mine the first time. I'll be the second patient they bring back who's gone through two surgeries prior to see if the implant will work. This is a full craniotomy, so I'll likely be in the hospital for several days with a long scar and a few staples again, just like the first time. But hopefully this works and brings some much needed relief to a situation that had none. Well, as usual, you fascinate us with the way that you spin the story and you make it just so easy. You've been through a craniotomy before and you talk about, you know, I'll have a long scar and all this stuff. What's it? What's it actually like? Miserable. Yeah. I mean, you know, I'm probably I'm getting ready. I'm probably going to lose my hair again. You know, that's what everybody doesn't realize. They don't have to shave my head. I think that's a misconception. They just shave where they where they cut. So I'll have a shave spot from here to about here. So it's about good 10 inches. I had 51 staples last time. We'll see how many I have this time. But yeah, I but the trauma to the head actually causes your your hair to fall out about three weeks later. Yeah. So it's not shaved. It's not shaved. But the stress to your head, the trauma from the surgery actually causes it to fall out. That's a joke. I said, you're going to be our bionic woman. And she said, it's funny you said that when I was growing up. My favorite show. And I my hero was Jamie Summers. I keep hearing the voice in my head. We can rebuild her. And my joke is they're going to make me a cyborg, except I'm first generation and I don't get the version with the laser eye. And I'm really upset about that. So maybe I'll get an upgrade next time and I'll get the laser eye, you know. Right. But yeah, I'm I'm kind of I'm excited about this. I will tell you, you know, it's it's because it's so new. Yeah. And I haven't. You know me. I like to do a lot of homework and there's not a lot of information out there. And this is kind of controversial. So, but, you know, I have I will take in the steps where, you know, people are going to learn from this and hopefully this is going to change the way people do things. And it's not the tumor. It is. It's not literally just a structural build. Correct. Yeah. So the tumor is still going to be there. I'm still going to have to deal with the brain tumor, but the tumor is not going to go anywhere. You know, we're still going to have to deal with that nonsense. But hopefully this will bring the relief to the ridiculous amount of pain and other nonsense I have to deal with on a daily basis. And you've got an army of folks behind you. Do what you're told. And come back when they tell you it's OK to come back and not a day before. I made a promise I would not escape from the hospital early. Well, go wash your hands now that you've been touching. Yes, exactly. I don't want to get you all infected with whatever. We're with you, Mom. Wash your hands. Best of luck. Thanks, Mom.