The closest of calls: Infant ’s DSM cured with life-saving brain procedure

Six-year-old Madelyn knows why she has to see a special team of doctors twice a year: she had brain surgery as a baby. But she doesn’t yet understand the full weight of the story.
“She knows there was a problem with something in her brain, and she had to go to Boston for special care, where the doctors made it all better,” says her mother, Julie. “She knows the team still checks in on her to make sure she stays healthy.”
As she gets older, Madelyn will be able to comprehend more and more. Someday she’ll realize not only just how lucky she is to be alive, but the incredible ordeal her parents went through when she was just 5 months old.
A mysterious illness
It was Valentine’s Day, 2011. Six-month-old Madelyn was sick — VERY sick. Her worried parents, Julie and Matt, took her to her pediatrician, who thought she was suffering a virus because she did not have a fever.
“We took her home, but this virus wasn’t going away,” says Julie. “Eventually it got so bad we had to take her to the emergency room (ER). She wouldn’t stop vomiting and couldn’t keep anything down, not even medicine.”
In the ER, Madelyn was so limp “she felt like a rag doll in my arms,” Julie says. That tipped off the doctor on call, Dr. Sara McSweeney-Ryan, to order an MRI.
“Dr. McSweeney-Ryan is the first doctor I credit with saving Madelyn’s life,” says Julie.
On MRI, it was clear that there was a problem in Madelyn’s brain, and her life was in danger. McSweeney-Ryan k...

Source: Thrive, Children's Hospital Boston - October 11, 2016 Category: Pediatrics Authors: Erin Horan Tags: brain center Department of Neurology Dr. Cameron Trenor Dr. Darren Orbach Dr. Michael Rivkin dural sinus malformation Source Type: news