Model Emily Sears says being awake during brain surgery was 'strange and surreal'

She says experience 'changed my world view more than I could ever express'

Emily Sears opens up about undergoing brain surgery (Getty)

Model Emily Sears has revealed she is recovering after undergoing brain surgery while awake last week.

On Monday, the Australian influencer opened up about her surgery on Instagram, where she explained that she was diagnosed last April with “cavernous malformation, otherwise known as a cavernoma, which is a cluster of abnormal blood vessels in the brain which cause epileptic seizures.”

According to the 35-year-old, who shared a photo of herself sleeping in a hospital bed post-surgery with her head wrapped in gauze, the diagnosis came after she was rushed to the hospital last year after suffering a major seizure.

“My whole life was put on hold from that point on from my work life to my social life, my relationship with my body and my identity,” Sears wrote. “This past year has been a roller-coaster of the up and downs of having multiple seizures, side effects of medication trials and the emotional toll of everything in my world changing so suddenly.”

In the caption, the Good American denim model explained that she was faced with the choice to either undergo brain surgery or to live “on medication for the rest of my life, always living with the likelihood of having breakthrough seizures even while medicated”.

For the surgery, Sears said she had to stay awake “to be able to speak to make sure they didn’t remove any vital tissue along with the blood vessels.”

The Mayo Clinic explains that awake brain surgeries, also referred to as awake craniotomy, are used to “treat some brain (neurological) conditions, including some brain tumours or epileptic seizures.”

“If your tumour or the area of your brain where your seizures occur (epileptic focus) is near the parts of your brain that control vision, movement or speech, you may need to be awake during surgery,” the medical centre states. “Your responses help your surgeon to ensure that he or she treats the correct area of your brain needing surgery,” while lowering the risk of damage to “functional areas of your brain that could affect your vision, movement or speech.”

According to the model, the experience of being awake while undergoing brain surgery was both “strange and surreal”.

“I remember every moment of being awake, there were two surgeons and one waved at me… it was as strange and surreal as it sounds!” she wrote.

Sears concluded her post explaining how the surgery has left her with a “deepened respect for the human body, the human mind and the human soul.”

“Ultimately, this experience has changed my world view more than I could ever express, and the overall feeling I am left with is gratitude,” she said. “I am humbly grateful for the ability to access healthcare, for the fact that my condition had a cure and for the support of my friends, family, industry peers and for my incredible man who has stuck by me the whole time.”

The influencer also used the opportunity to remind her more than 4.9m followers that people don’t share everything happening in their lives on social media and to “always be kind”.