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Brain surgery in Australia leaves girl 'completely cured' Lindsey Christy is back home and is expected to return to school this week By MELISSA MARTIN Mail Tribune GOLD HILL - Lindsey Christy has returned home from Australia, free from a brain tumor that triggered epileptic seizures and fits of rage most of her life. Dr. Jeffrey Rosenfeld and a team of surgeons at Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne used a rare procedure to remove all of a benign tumor lodged deep in the brain of the Hanby Middle School eighth-grader. "She is completely cured," said her father, Carl Christy of Medford. "The tumor is completely gone, and Lindsey is having no more seizures." The 14-year-old is recovering at home with her mother, Debbie Christy, and is expected to return to school this week. "One minute we had a girl whose life would be forever dependent upon the care of her family," said her aunt, Jana Patten of Central Point. "The next minute, a girl seizure-free with a new life and a future of whatever she chooses." Carl Christy wrote in an e-mail from Australia, "Virtually everyone has said for us to expect a rocketing up on Lindsey's learning abilities and a moderating of moods to near normal over the next few months." Rosenfeld has removed tumors in 27 children with hypothalamic hamartoma, the condition that Lindsey suffered from. The family had to travel across the world because no doctor in the United States would attempt to remove a tumor in the part of the brain that controls hormones, emotions, aggression, sexual drive, memory, thirst, blood pressure and sleep. Neither would the family's insurance company pay for the experimental surgery. Hanby Middle School students and staff raised more than $45,000. Other groups that helped were Central Point Assembly of God, the Southern Oregon Harley Owners Group and the Sparrow Foundation, a Bend organization that matches money raised by students. Lindsey's surgery may be one of Rosenfeld's last after funding for his program was cut. Carl Christy stayed an extra day in Melbourne to ask Royal Children's Hospital officials to keep the program. He hopes Rosenfeld's team will bring the technique to the United States. What's so revolutionary about Rosenfeld's method is that he performs the surgery from the top of the head, not from the traditional approach near the cheek or temple. Here is how The Age, a Melbourne newspaper, described the procedure: "He cuts a 4-centimeter square hole in the top of the skull and using a powerful microscope guides an instrument - an ultrasonic aspirator - down between the two hemispheres or sides of the brain into the third ventricle. The aspirator collapses the tumor with high-frequency ultrasound and then sucks it out." While it takes only five minutes to collapse the tumor, it can take two hours to remove the instrument from the brain, Carl Christy said. The neurosurgeon left most of Lindsey's red hair during the March 18 operation. "When we first got in to recovery, she only had a very small bandage on," Carl Christy wrote in an e-mail. "I was in awe that they could extract the tumor from such a small hole." Lindsey remained near the hospital for a month so a medical team could monitor her recovery after the surgery. She and her mother returned home April 16. "We are still in quite a shock of the miraculous healing of Lindsey, whose tumor was said to be inoperable by U.S. doctors," Patten said of her niece. "We are also thankful to our wonderful community - without them, this surgery could not have taken place. We are so grateful for the outpouring of hearts and pocketbooks. It's incredible to realize there are so many caring people out there." And her father thanked friends and family for their prayers. "God is so good," Carl Christy wrote. "You are all awesome people to have helped Lindsey and us with your thoughts and prayers. I told Professor Rosenfeld that he had truly given Lindsey a new life and with that, many of the rest of us hope and new beginnings." Reach reporter Melissa Martin at 776-4497, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.