Arnn back to work after brain surgery

Arnn back to work after brain surgery

College President Larry Arnn in 2020.

College President Larry Arnn is back to work after undergoing brain surgery on March 22, he announced in an email to students, faculty, and staff on Wednesday.

“I feel better than I have felt for some years,” Arnn, who is 70, told the Collegian after his surgery. Arnn, who had more than 30 examinations and spent eight days at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, was treated for a rise in fluid and pressure around his brain, he said.

“Brain surgery sounds very serious, but this one is not,” Arnn wrote in his March 29 email. “I was intending to announce this at convocation, but people tell me there is speculation going about.” 

Arnn said he broke the news of the surgery to a crowd of people on March 25, so they wouldn’t wonder why he was wearing a baseball hat. 

“I make the boys take their baseball caps off in the dining hall all the time,” Arnn told the Collegian. “And the people there probably didn’t know that, but I did. And so I just mentioned that I had brain surgery on Wednesday. And everybody laughed and I said ‘well it’s not a joke, but it’s okay. Don’t worry about it.’” 

According to Arnn, who became college president in 2000, the news of his surgery spread quickly. 

 “A couple of people called me and said ‘you’re going to have to say something about this because now it’s going around that you’re near death,’” Arnn said. “And I’m not.” 

Arnn said he first noticed something was wrong when he had trouble riding his motorcycle and developed difficulty balancing.

“Three years ago or so, I became a not very good motorcycle rider, and I had been pretty good. I became a nervous motorcycle rider,” Arnn said. 

After seeking chiropractic care for his back pain, Arnn said chiropractor Kevin Walton ’94 suggested his lack of balance could signify a greater problem.

“As time passed, people began to notice I was walking slower,” Arnn said. “And my elder daughter especially became belligerent about it and said that I had to go see a new doctor in town, Scott Kirsch. And he figured it out by just talking to me for 45 minutes.”

Arnn soon had appointments booked at the Mayo Clinic, where several of his family members have been treated in the past.

“They’re very savvy at the Mayo Clinic. And they know about people like me. So their instruction is to rest as much as you can. And I don’t need to, so I’m working,” Arnn said. 

Arnn said apart from soreness from the surgery, he is “a fully operational Death Star,” and appreciates the college’s support. 

“I am grateful for the support I have had from the college community. Everyone knows my wife is the greatest, and she has been in this matter too. Neither of us has regarded this as a crisis,” Arnn said in his email.

Kathleen O’Toole, assistant provost for K-12 education and daughter of Arnn, said he has treated the surgery with his typical humor. 

“He was working right up until the morning of the surgery and he was working the morning after the surgery, to the point where we had to tell him ‘please stop and go to sleep,’” O’Toole said. “ I talked to him right before the surgery and I talked to him again the day after and he was himself the entire time.”

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