A FATHER who had life-saving brain surgery while awake has spoken about his road to recovery.

Yain Baty, from Connah’s Quay, watched the remarkable operation unfold on a television screen.

He had been diagnosed with a brain tumour just one week earlier.

A year on and the 42-year-old is making a promising recovery.

Yain said: “It was the most surreal experience of my life. There was a very real chance I could have died.

“The surgeon spelled it out very clearly that the consequences were serious if I didn’t act quickly.”

Yain, of Llys Pant Derw, knew something was wrong in April last year.

He said: “I was on the phone to my friend when she said she couldn’t understand a word I was saying.

“I realised the left side of my face had gone completely numb. It lasted around 40 seconds.”

Yain reported the sensation to a nurse at his workplace Toyota, on Deeside Industrial Park, who referred him to The Grosvenor Nuffield Hospital in Chester.

Further tests at The Walton Centre, Liverpool, confirmed Yain had a brain tumour called an astrocytoma.

He said: “Within a week I was having the surgery. They wanted to operate while I was awake to make sure I could still move parts of my body and feel things.

“As they got closer to the tumour, I started to feel a numbness in my face and a tingling in my fingers, and the surgeons knew they couldn’t go much further.

“They had tried to cover the television screen with a green cloth but I asked to see it.

“I wanted to know what was going on.”

Yain said he was well prepared for the operation.

“Staff had talked me through the procedure many times so I knew exactly what to expect.

“I still suffer from some side effects from the tumour.

“I struggle to remember people’s names sometimes because my short-term memory is not the best.”

Yain, who had to surrender his driving licence following his diagnosis, has six-monthly check-ups to ensure the tumour does not return.

He has been supported through his ordeal by wife Denise and their eight-year-old daughter, Yzanne.

“Yzanne has taken it all very matter-of-factly, as children do,” said Yain.

“She went to school and was telling her friends doctors had put my brain in a jar.

Denise has been absolutely brilliant too. My recovery is as good as it possibly can be.”