Darren Daulton Brain Tumors Successfully Removed, Now 'Concern is His Language Function'
Former Philadelphia Phillies catcher Darren Daulton successfully had two brain tumors removed on Monday and was awake and speaking to family.
The former all-star will be released from Thomas Jefferson Hospital next week following his seven hour surgery said Dr. Kevin Judy to ESPN.
Daulton will still need radiation treatments in about three weeks along with speech therapy as his cognitive skills and speech function are being monitored because of the sensitive location of the tumors. It was located near the Wernicke's area, the part of the brain that involves the understanding of written and spoken language.
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"The concern is his language function - the problem he had been having that brought him to [our] attention," Judy said according to Philly.com.
Dr. Judy said the severity of the glioma tumor removed from the 51-year-olds brain is still uncertain as they scale from 1 - 4.
Philly.com says Daulton was awake during most of the surgery because the doctors had to monitor how he was reacting during the operation. Judy would stimulate parts of the catcher's brain by getting him to talk.
"We couldn't use the standard paradigms that we do, like asking him about African animals and do cows fly and stuff like that," Judy said to Philly.com. "So we had to resort to sports questions, which he did very well on."
"As far as full recovery, he did have some trouble prior to surgery with the language function," Judy continued. "We'd have to see how that evolves."
Daulton played 14 1/2 seasons with the Phillies and won the World Series in 1993, and managed to win a World Series in half a season with the Florida Marlins in 1997.
