"it's nooot a toooo-mah."

today's gonna be short and sweet. i'm simply going to ask for positive vibes for brother wan.

he's suffered from migraine headaches all his life, and when he finally decided to have it checked out, we learned that he was actually born with some kind of defect that was never detected. it's some form of something called "arnold-chiari malformation."

and as i type this, he's undergoing some serious surgery that involves drilling a hole in his skull to remove one, possibly two, vertebrae that his brain stem is extending past. or some shit like that. i'm no medical expert (obviously), but i know it's major. he got to the hospital at 5:30 this morning and the operation began at 7:30. it's expected to last between 3 and 5 hours, and he'll be laid up for a good month. kind of sucks, considering he just graduated from culinary school and he's all fired up and ready to find a job somewhere, but i guess the silver lining is that he won't have to take off work for it. right?

it's only got a 70% success rate, but apparently, there's nothing else that can be done about it. it's not life-threatening without the surgery, but the migraines will get worse. and they'll come more often. yikes. brother wan is a manly-man, but these monthly and sometimes weekly headaches take his ass down. and they're bad enough that he was willing to undergo this procedure.

so please, if you have a moment, and you pray, please pray for him. and if not, maybe you could just send some happy, healthy vibes towards brother wan. he's such a good guy, and we all love him dearly.

and hey, if you know of any great restaurants looking for a chef... ;)