Music to a mother’s ears: Awake craniotomies bring musicians together

Witnessing her adult son, Adrian, suffer a severe seizure at their home in the Rio Grande Valley during the spring of 2022 was nerve-wracking. Finding out a few months later that it was caused by a brain tumor called astrocytoma was devastating. 

But when Gloria Rivas learned that Adrian’s neurosurgeon, Sujit Prabhu, M.D., wanted to perform an awake craniotomy on her son to treat it, she was astonished.

“It absolutely stunned me,” she says. “It was scary to think of my son being awakened during actual brain surgery. It was unimaginable.”

And, yet, not entirely unprecedented. 

Video gives family the courage to move forward

MD Anderson neurosurgeons perform between 80 and 90 awake craniotomies each year. Prabhu had performed one on Robert Alvarez in February 2018 that marked a true first for MD Anderson. Robert, a professional musician, had strummed an acoustic guitar during that procedure to ensure his surgeons didn’t damage anything that might impair his ability to play.

Gloria, her husband, Raul, and their amateur drummer son, Adrian, ultimately found the confidence to move forward with a similar procedure in an unlikely place: a YouTube video about Robert’s experience. 

“If it weren’t for that video, I don’t know where Adrian would be today,” says Gloria, whose son played a drum pad during an awake craniotomy at MD Anderson in September 2022. “It really encouraged him and made us all feel more comfortable.” 

RELATED: Guitarist’s awake craniotomy video strikes a chord with drummer facing similar diagnosis

Celebratory jam session hits just the right note

Adrian and his parents were able to thank Robert in person on February 13, 2024, when the two met at MD Anderson for a casual jam session in honor of their care teams.

“My husband and I cried,” Gloria recalls. “It was so beautiful to watch. Adrian’s 37, but he’s still our baby. And when I look at him now, it’s like nothing ever happened.”

Adrian will have to take anti-seizure medication for the rest of his life. “But other than a little residual stiffness in his right wrist, he doesn’t have any other side effects. And, he is cancer-free,” Gloria says. “I am so grateful to MD Anderson.”

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