Magical Modern Medicine Successfully Treats New Dehli Baby With Rare Head Swelling Disorder

surgeon-handsRoona Begum, a one year-old New Dehli child, suffers from a rare head swelling disorder called hydrocephalus, which causes an excess of fluid to build up in the brain. The photo of this child before her procedure is astonishing and heartbreaking, and I am so glad this story has many happy endings to it because I don’t think I could handle the alternative.

Fox News reports:

Her condition had caused her head to swell to a circumference of 94cm, putting pressure on her brain and making it impossible for her to sit upright or crawl. Roona’s head had shrunk to about 60cm after procedures conducted in May and doctors expect it to shrink further after yesterday’s operation.

 

During the surgery at the hospital run by the private Fortis Healthcare group, Dr. Sandeep Vaishya and two other surgeons sliced through the baby’s scalp in an attempt to bring her bones closer and compress her head.

 

Plastic surgeon Dr. Rashmi Taneja, who worked alongside Vaishya on the surgery, said she had never before come across a case like Roona’s.
“When we first cut open her head, all you saw were these fragments of bone floating over a fluid-filled sac. It’s one of the most challenging cases I have seen,” Taneja said.

 

Reading this story as a mom, I can’t help but recall how vulnerable and helpless I felt when my daughter ever seemed unwell during babyhood. She was a very healthy baby, but I still panicked over everything — was this crying fit just colic or something more serious? Were those irregularities in her breathing a sign of a lung problem? Were the car seat straps too tight? (Once she was abruptly quiet while I was driving, and I reached back and wiggled her frantically by the shoulders because I thought her winter coat had suffocated her. She was motionless. When I pulled over and raced around to open the back door and get a look at her, she started giggling, presumably because mama was acting so ridiculous).

However, to see your child struggle with something as serious and physically evident as hydrocephalus is unimaginable. What’s even more amazing is that the family couldn’t originally afford treatment, but when the aforementioned New Dehli hospital heard about the situation, they offered to provide treatment for free. But wait, there’s even MORE:

The pictures of Roona also triggered an outpouring of support worldwide with prospective donors contacting AFP and other news organizations, enquiring how they could contribute to a fund for her and her family’s welfare.

Two Norwegian college students, Jonas Borchgrevink and Nathalie Krantz, started an online campaign that has raised $57,000 to help her family and fund any future aftercare.

This is just too much amazing to handle. I wish the best for this family, and this little girl will have some incredible stories to tell when she grows up.

(photo: wavebreakmedia / Shutterstock)

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