You are much braver than I would be. Prayers will be said for a successful surgery and full recovery. God bless you.
ping.
Trust me, being awake during the surgery is a good thing. They put you under at the start, open up the skull and then wake you up at some point. The reason they do this is to ensure they are not getting too close to sensitive areas of the brain during the procedure. In my case, they told me they primarily wanted to make sure the surgery didn't result in any unnecessary weakness on my right side. In other situations, I believe they will show patients flash cards with words and ask them to spell the word and various other exercises related to speech, math, colors... Once the surgical part of the procedure is complete, they put you back under and stitch you back up. The only item I'm not quite sure about is whether I'll remember anything or if they'll give me "something" to forget the whole experience. Since I'm an engineer, I find the whole idea rather fascinating. We were talking about it at work on Friday when the idea of filming it with my camcorder came up. It's not exactly a sterile device, though. :)