According to the Golf Channel, JB Holmes is scheduled for brain surgery next week. He developed a condition known as Chiari Malformation after the Players Championship, and has struggled on the course over the past couple of months.
I looked the condition up on Wikipedia, but I still don’t know exactly what it is. However the symptoms include dizziness, tinnitus, nausea, muscle weakness, sleep apnea, and impaired muscle coordination among other symptoms. In severe cases it can cause paralysis.
Terry Reilly, a rep for Holmes, described the procedure as “very non-invasive” and “non-life threatening”. I didn’t understand the treatment listed on Wikipedia either, but it doesn’t exactly sound like an outpatient procedure to me:
Once symptomatic onset occurs, a common treatment is decompression surgery,[25] in which a neurosurgeon usually removes the lamina of the first and sometimes the second or even third cervical vertebrae and part of the occipital bone of the skull to relieve pressure. The flow of spinal fluid may be accompanied by a shunt. Since this surgery usually involves the opening of the dura mater and the expansion of the space beneath, a dural graft is usually applied to cover the expanded posterior fossa.
Reilly says that if everything goes according to plan, Holmes could be hitting balls again in a month. It seems to me that if you have brain surgery and it keeps you from hitting a golf ball for a month, it’s probably a fairly serious surgery.
Regardless, get well soon JB. We all want to see you back out cranking 350yd drives on tour soon.
