'It was surreal:' Dane County man undergoes brain surgery with the help of an unusual instrument in the operating room

 

DANE COUNTY, Wis. (CBS 58) -- His love for the trombone first started by hearing his father and uncle play.

Now, Brian Rust of McFarland, Wisconsin, is in a horn rock concert band, and covers multiple genres of music, including jazz and RnB.

"There is some family history behind it," Rust told CBS 58's Ellie Nakamoto-White. "I just enjoy playing it!"

So, when several years ago, what was routine began getting harder, Rust knew he had to figure out the cause.

"It would almost feel as though somebody else was grabbing it and kind of shaking it," Rust said.

A neurologist would later diagnose him with an intention tremor, prescribing multiple medicinal treatments and therapies.

But the tremor still persisted.

"So, I said, 'what's left?'" Rust recalled. "And she said, 'well, you could look into surgical options.'"

What followed was a series of tests to evaluate if Rust would be a good candidate for deep brain stimulation surgery, or DBS. 

"It's a procedure where we place small wires into a patient's brain," said Dr. Wendell Lake, a neurosurgeon with UW Health in Madison. 

DBS patients are required to be awake during the operation and are typically asked to perform a series of actions like pretending to drink from a cup, drawing lines on a dry erase board, or just speaking to assess their voice quality.

 "So, because I knew that they ran tests while they were doing the surgery, I said, well, could I bring my horn in?" Rust said. 

And to his delight -- his medical team said yes. 

"One of the chief reasons for my looking into doing the surgery was so that I could continue to play music," Rust said. "I was very glad that they agreed to let me do this, because, if they hadn't for some reason, and it turned out later that I was not able to continue to play, I would have just felt like, well, why in the world did I do this?"

After everything was carefully sanitized, Rust was able to hold his trombone and pretend to play during the operation.

"I got the impression that all of the staff were watching me, because that was pretty unusual for them," Rust said. "It was surreal."

Thankfully, all went well. 

Now two years after the surgery, Rust has a device in his chest that's connected to the wires implanted in his brain.

"That battery is able to send a small amount of electrical current to his brain, and that modulates the cells in that area and improves his tremor," Dr. Lake explained.

According to Rust, the device has two settings -- one for everyday life, and the other which he calls his "trombone setting."

"They basically turn up one side of my brain in terms of the signal that is being sent, and then they actually turn down the other side of my brain, so that the effect is not as great on my speech and my tonguing," Rust said. "We go in trial and error, try this, try that, you know, it's kind of like a vision test, where they say, is this better or is that better?"

While he's not required to do so, Rust turns the device off when he goes to bed.

"So, every night, I have a reminder of what life could be like if I didn't have this device," Rust said. 

Now he's gearing up for his next performance, which is happening at the end of the month.

"For me, [the tremors] were a real quality of life issue," Rust said. "My message to people who also suffer from tremors or Parkinson's, which can also be helped with this surgery, is to be open to whatever solution will enable you to live your life to the fullest. In other words, you don't need to suffer."