TNN | Dec 6, 2012, 04.30 AM IST
CHENNAI: When Ashaswathan couldn't hold a ball in his
left hand and his face showed no emotions even after he turned one, his parents
knew something was seriously wrong.
"He stopped reacting. He stumbled when he walked, his left eye twitched constantly and the corner of his lips sagged. Every day, there was some new sign of his faculties failing," said Ashaswathan's mother Soumya Jayakkanth, a primary school teacher in Sri Lanka. Soumya and her husband, who works as a bus conductor, took him to a hospital in Pasikuda, which referred them to Global Health City hospital in Chennai. After a critical surgery on his brain stem, a healthy Ashaswathan is now ready to fly back to his homeland with his parents. After he was brought to the Chennai hospital on November 1, an MRI scan showed a tumour and an abnormal blood vessel at the back of the brain. And it bled continuously.
"He stopped reacting. He stumbled when he walked, his left eye twitched constantly and the corner of his lips sagged. Every day, there was some new sign of his faculties failing," said Ashaswathan's mother Soumya Jayakkanth, a primary school teacher in Sri Lanka. Soumya and her husband, who works as a bus conductor, took him to a hospital in Pasikuda, which referred them to Global Health City hospital in Chennai. After a critical surgery on his brain stem, a healthy Ashaswathan is now ready to fly back to his homeland with his parents. After he was brought to the Chennai hospital on November 1, an MRI scan showed a tumour and an abnormal blood vessel at the back of the brain. And it bled continuously.
"His left side had completely stopped responding. It was a challenging case considering his age and the sensitive portion where the tumour was detected," said Dr K Sridhar, who headed the team of neurosurgeons. The surgeons wielded the scalpel on November 5 and approached the brain stem from behind the ear. As the tumour was too deep, the surgeons, using micro-instruments, cut a major portion of the tumour and left the rest for another surgery, which they planned to do three months later.
However, the remaining portion of the tumour bled profusely, resulting in Ashaswathan having frequent blackouts.
"We decided to advance the second surgery and removed the remaining part of the vascular malformation," said Sridhar. The surgery lasted six hours before the toddler was rolled out of the operation theatre.
