Brain tumor doesn't leave lawmaker at his wit's end HOUSE: Mike Doogan returns to Juneau and takes it slow as he recovers from surgery.

JUNEAU -- As a journalist and legislator, Mike Doogan has made a career in Alaska of saying what's on his mind.

And then, suddenly, he couldn't anymore.

The first time the Anchorage lawmaker floundered for words was in the middle of a speech on the House floor in Juneau last February.

The speech was in front of him on a piece of paper, Doogan said in a recent interview. But after about a sentence, the next word wouldn't come out. He fumbled the rest.

This happened again and again during the last legislative session.

It was odd for a sharp-witted guy who usually had "the best speeches and the best timing," said House Minority Whip Beth Kerttula, D-Juneau. She figured he was exhausted.

"The first thing I did was stop talking so much," Doogan said. But that didn't solve anything.

He wasn't doing any better when he returned to Anchorage in the spring. His wife, Kathy, prodded him to go to the doctor.

After testing, Doogan learned that he had a massive tumor on top of his brain about the size of a three-inch cookie wafer. It had probably been there for 20 to 30 years, doctors said.

If it wasn't removed, it would kill him in a year, a doctor told him.

The worst thing that had ever happened to him before -- physically -- was a bloody face plant on Anchorage's coastal trail. He had never had stitches or a broken bone.

Now, brain surgery?

Doogan, a former Anchorage Daily News columnist and author of mystery books, wasn't the only House legislator who faced a life-and-death struggle during the last term.

After chronic illness, Rep. Richard Foster, D-Nome died in a Seattle hospital in October 2009 of a heart attack. Sen. Dennis Egan, D-Juneau, had triple-bypass surgery last fall. Rep. Mike Hawker, R-Anchorage, is mending after fighting back an aggressive rare form of cancer last summer.

Foster's son Neal has taken over the Nome seat. The three survivors are now back at work, engaged on bills and the state budget. Doogan shows little evidence that he is still recovering from brain surgery.

SURGERY

Luckily, Doogan's tumor, a meningioma, was benign. Before surgery in July, doctors in Seattle rated his chance for survival as very good -- 95 percent.

That said, the chance of him losing some brain function was 20 percent, he said.

The operation last July, by Seattle brain surgeon Richard Ellenbogen, required drilling a hole and temporarily removing a triangle-shaped piece of Doogan's skull.

Extracting the tumor required cutting his brain. This left him with cognitive difficulties. After waking up, Doogan said he couldn't see out of his right eye. He couldn't talk well. For a time, he couldn't read or write.

The second day after surgery, Doogan sat with his utensils at breakfast. He couldn't figure them out and ended up eating with his hands.

"It took three days to understand what a spoon is," he said.

It still takes Doogan a long time to type his constituent newsletters. He doesn't trust his handwriting, and he won't be writing books for a while. His vision still isn't perfect.

"It's just nuts. Out of all the effects this could have, it took the things that I enjoy the most," Doogan said.

ROAD TO RECOVERY

Doogan and his wife spent the rest of the summer and the fall working on his recovery. Card games, throwing balls, speech therapy.

His vision came back slowly. He kept running into things, and that got old.

It turned out that some of the Alaskans he kept in touch with during his recovery were also brain surgery survivors. They told him to take it slow.

"There were days I wasn't sure I would ever be able to even talk coherently, let alone get in the pit with the rest of the people in this building and slug it out," he said.

Doogan had committed to colleagues to run for a second term from his Spenard district. After finding out about the tumor, he said he decided to stay in the race because he didn't want to break his word. Also, there were political considerations: he didn't want to put his Democratic seat at risk.

If the worst happened and he couldn't return to Juneau, fellow Democrats could select a replacement, he reasoned.

When it came time to campaign for re-election, Doogan released ads poking fun of his situation.

"He's got the brains to get things done in the state House of Representatives -- and the CAT scans to prove it," one radio ad said.

By November, Doogan said he knew for sure he was in good enough shape to go back to work.

He had one setback in January -- a minor seizure while he was at his house holding a cup of coffee. He went to the hospital. Seizures are a common side effect of brain surgery.

Now he's on anti-seizure medicine for a while and has had no further trouble.

"Right now, I have a keen sense of the important people in my life, what I'm trying to get done and how little time I have left," Doogan said.

One of his goals for the session is to pass House Bill 15, creating new school guidelines for student athletes who have a concussion while playing sports or recreating at school. Among other things, the bill would require evaluation by a licensed health care provider before the student returns to play.

The idea came from his doctor in Seattle, Ellenbogen, who co-chairs the National Football League's committee investigating the long-term impact of concussions for the league's athletes.

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