SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Great Slave MLA Glen Abernethy is recovering at home after 11 hours of brain surgery earlier this month.

Glen Abernathy: "Luckily they found this thing by fluke." -

Abernethy endured two five-hour-plus sessions on the operating table in a Calgary hospital to stop pressure from building up in his brain, a condition called Arteriovenous Malformation, or AVM.

"Basically it's arteries and veins that had intermingled in the back of my head and I've got arterial blood causing pressure on veins," Abernethy said from his home on Tuesday. "Basically, if they hadn't discovered it I would've had a stroke and one of three things would have happened, I would've died, been a vegetable or had some form of permanent disability.

"Luckily they found this thing by fluke."

Abernethy has been absent from the current legislative assembly session since the first day, on Jan. 27. The day before session started, Abernethy got a call from doctors in Calgary, asking him to get to the hospital there as soon as possible.

"Before then I didn't know that anything was wrong at all," Abernethy said. "I knew I was going to miss February 1 because I was going to have MRIs because I was having some headaches. We did a CT scan before then so I was getting ready to go to Edmonton for just the MRI scan and I would be back same day."

Abernethy flew down to Calgary on Jan. 28, and over three days went through a series of tests. He had his first round of surgery on Feb. 2, lasting five and a half hours. Two days later he spent another five hours in surgery.

"It's kind of neat actually," Abernethy said. "They had to cut into my femoral arteries and then thread this machine up all the way through my body up into my brain and they put it where the veins and arteries are having the problems. They actually sealed the arteries in my brain so the blood wouldn't back-flow anymore."

Speaker Paul Delorey made mention of Abernethy's surgery in the legislative assembly on Feb. 8 and its success, garnering applause from MLAs.

"On behalf of all members, I want to wish him well and a speedy recovery," Delorey said. "I know he is very anxious to get back to work and will do so as soon as he gets the green light from his health-care professionals."

Joking about how he'd become a bit of a "shadow" recently, Abernethy is grateful for the medical professionals who have helped him.

"The thing that makes me the happiest was after the second surgery, the doctor leaned over me as I was leaving the operating room and he told me I was cured," Abernethy said, adding the battle now is to get healthy and back into the office, where prior to the surgery, he had never missed a day for health reasons.

"I'm kind of a mess right now," Abernethy said. "I have zero energy, my body is a disaster. I'm having tonnes of headaches, anywhere from one to three a day. So I'm just trying to get healthy here and get back to work. I've missed quite a bit and I'm right stressed about it. It's important to me.

"I'm hoping to get in by Thursday to at least do a member's statement to let people know I'm not dead. I've never missed a day until this and I hope to never miss another one after this is done."

Voters elected Abernethy to represent the riding of Great Slave in the 2007 territorial election - his first time in office.