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theweaselkingMIDVALE, Utah (AP) - Briana Lane says she likes having her skull back.
One morning in January, the 22-year-old woke up in the hospital with her long hair pulled up on one side into a ponytail. On the other, she was bald, with only skin and sutures covering an area where nearly half her skull had been removed.
She stayed that way for almost four months, a dent in her head showing where her skull had been taken out to save her life following a car accident. After Lane was released from hospital in February, her skull remained in a hospital freezer while paperwork changed hands between the hospital and Medicaid to determine who’d pay for the surgery to make Lane whole again.
Today, Lane’s close-cropped hairdo barely covers the long curved scar on her scalp where her skull was finally replaced on April 30, months after the accident on an icy road sent her to the emergency room.
Lane has lost hearing in her right ear and speaks in a soft, raspy voice, having damaged her throat after repeatedly ripping out oxygen tubes while under medication. She considers herself lucky for surviving the accident but says the months spent living at home without a portion of her skull were excruciating.
Waking up in the morning, she would notice how her brain had shifted during the night to one side. She was given a plastic street hockey helmet to wear during the day for protection.
"You’d think they could give me something better protective," said Lane. "Like a skull, perhaps."
Lane blames the delay in her surgery to bureaucratic red tape between the University of Utah Health Sciences Center and Medicaid. Without funds to pay for the surgery herself, a frustrated and unemployed Lane eventually contacted a local television station, a move which she believes hastened the surgery.
"All of a sudden - top of the list!" she said.
One morning in January, the 22-year-old woke up in the hospital with her long hair pulled up on one side into a ponytail. On the other, she was bald, with only skin and sutures covering an area where nearly half her skull had been removed.
She stayed that way for almost four months, a dent in her head showing where her skull had been taken out to save her life following a car accident. After Lane was released from hospital in February, her skull remained in a hospital freezer while paperwork changed hands between the hospital and Medicaid to determine who’d pay for the surgery to make Lane whole again.
Today, Lane’s close-cropped hairdo barely covers the long curved scar on her scalp where her skull was finally replaced on April 30, months after the accident on an icy road sent her to the emergency room.
Lane has lost hearing in her right ear and speaks in a soft, raspy voice, having damaged her throat after repeatedly ripping out oxygen tubes while under medication. She considers herself lucky for surviving the accident but says the months spent living at home without a portion of her skull were excruciating.
Waking up in the morning, she would notice how her brain had shifted during the night to one side. She was given a plastic street hockey helmet to wear during the day for protection.
"You’d think they could give me something better protective," said Lane. "Like a skull, perhaps."
Lane blames the delay in her surgery to bureaucratic red tape between the University of Utah Health Sciences Center and Medicaid. Without funds to pay for the surgery herself, a frustrated and unemployed Lane eventually contacted a local television station, a move which she believes hastened the surgery.
"All of a sudden - top of the list!" she said.