A mere couple of days after undergoing a massive craniotomy at The University of New Mexico Hospital, Sen. Pete Campos, D-Las Vegas, was already asking for his cell phone so he could check on his constituents.
“I haven’t skipped a beat,” Campos said. “I continue to love life and serve people.”
The state senator, who has represented New Mexico’s 8th District since 1991 and serves on the powerful Legislative Finance Committee, underwent a five-hour operation in May to remove a grapefruit-sized brain tumor – a massive benign meningioma. But getting to that diagnosis was a long journey.
The Sunday after Thanksgiving 2021, Campos and his wife Lori went for a walk with their granddaughter. That’s when Lori noticed something was slightly off with how Campos walked.
“I asked him, ‘Why are you walking like that?’” she said. “I think a lot of people wouldn’t have noticed it, but I’m his wife and I know how he walks.”
At his wife’s request, the couple went to visit their son, Peter Campos, DN, who practices naprapathy at Life Wellness Center in Santa Fe. In the clinic, the younger Campos completed a series of tests on his father.
“One of the things in my profession is basically manual medicine, so I was checking to see if one leg was shorter than the other or if he had any tight or loose muscles. I thought it was strange that nothing seemed off and that he wasn’t experiencing any pain,” Peter Campos said. “But when he was getting on and off the exam table, I noticed that he couldn’t raise his left leg very well – it just seemed weak.”
Suspecting something neurological had occurred – perhaps a minor stroke in his sleep – the younger Campos recommended his father see his primary care physician as soon as possible.
An MRI on Christmas Eve revealed a large meningeal tumor. While many meningiomas never produce any symptoms, Campos’ tumor was pressing on the part of the brain that controls motor skills, which had contributed to some minor weakness on the left side of his body.
After hearing the surreal diagnosis, Campos said he thought about his life and family.
I’ve always dealt with issues as they’ve come up. As they were explaining to us what was happening, I was trying to figure out how we were going to deal with it
“I’ve always dealt with issues as they’ve come up,” he said. “As they were explaining to us what was happening, I was trying to figure out how we were going to deal with it.”
After an initial craniotomy at another hospital where a portion of the tumor was removed, the 68-year-old senator was referred to UNM neurosurgeon Christian Bowers, MD, and a second surgery was scheduled for May 9. Because the tumor was so large – approximately 6-7 centimeters in diameter – Bowers had to make a large, upside-down-U-shaped incision that took up the entirety of the back of Campos’ head.
“It definitely qualified as what they call a giant tumor,” Bowers said. “We were able to do huge craniotomy – exposing his main draining vein – and remove all of the tumor.”
The five-hour surgery, while successful, was not without its challenges. The tumor had occluded the main draining vein in Campos’ brain. Working around it, Bowers said, was difficult.
“Where the tumor ended, that’s where the draining vein had picked back up,” Bowers said. “Instead of one big river, it’s like having a thousand creeks under high pressure, so you don’t want to disrupt any of them. It’s more dangerous.”
As the only Level I trauma center in the state, UNMH provides critical care that isn’t available at other hospitals.
That’s why we are the place that everyone in the state has sent cases to. We have more experience dealing with complicated brain tumors – or whatever the neurosurgical problem is – and we have more experience doing it than anyone else.
“And that’s why we are the place that everyone in the state has sent cases to,” Bowers said. “We have more experience dealing with complicated brain tumors – or whatever the neurosurgical problem is – and we have more experience doing it than anyone else.”
Campos said that because of the care he received at UNMH, his recovery time was quick, and he was up walking around the next day in his hospital room.
“Dr. Bowers has been very candid, and that’s what I appreciate, because I like knowing what I’m dealing with,” Campos said. “I’m living proof that we have a great team at UNM. I’m very grateful.”
Campos said a lot of his work in politics, as well as his work in the higher education sector, has been focused on building educational and health care systems to improve the state. He said being cared for at UNMH further cemented how important those investments are.
“I really believe that we’re very strong and very competitive and people don’t have to leave the state for these kinds of services,” he said. “The people at UNMH gave me an opportunity to continue to do what I love, which is to serve people.”
