Blackberry on the Brain.

(More graphic version here.)

The poor kid just can't catch a break. Ryan Westmoreland has been diagnosed with a cavernous malformation in his brain and has been sent to Arizona to have it removed.

A cavernous angioma (aka cavernous malformation or cavernoma) is a benign tumor. They're actually not uncommon but most people go through life without knowing that they have one (or two). It's a grouping of thin-walled blood vessels that develop little nodules where the blood traveling through the vessel has pooled and clotted. Usually, a whole cluster of nodules will develop and the tumor starts to look like a blackberry.

Because brain surgery is, well, brain surgery it's typically the last resort for treatment. If the symptoms (most commonly seizures) can't be managed with medication, then they resort to surgery. (I suspect that this is not the case for Westmoreland.) Typically, the surgery is highly successful; if the angioma is removed completely there is no chance of recurrence.

Best of luck to him.

Edit: According to PawSox radio guy Steve Hyder, Westmoreland suffered a seizure last week; which would explain how they found it.

Edit Again: If Edes is right (and if you're going to believe just one person, Edes would be the one to believe), Westmoreland didn't have a seizure, they sent him for the MRI because he had headaches. Edes also writes that the angioma is on Westmoreland's brain stem and that it's already hemorrhaged once; which makes it much more serious. But they do think that they can do the surgery, so that's a positive.