Woman walks again after 10-hour-long surgery in Dubai

Dubai - She was bedridden and was allowed to sit only for 10 minutes max at a stretch.

Hadeel, a 36-year-old Arab woman, had given up all her hope of walking ever again when one doctor after the other said that a tumour in her spine could not be treated.
She was bedridden and was allowed to sit only for 10 minutes max at a stretch after her breast cancer had spread onto the backbone. And now, after a 10-hour-long surgery and one month of physiotherapy, she walks like any other normal person.
"I had cancer long back but it came back on the spine," Hadeel told Khaleej Times.
"The tumour was so bad on the spine that I could not lift my legs and was allowed to sit only 10 minutes in a day because there was lots of pressure on the backbone," she said.
Due to the huge tumour, Hadeel had also lost sensation in her lower body and needed help to go the restroom. "I went to three different doctors but all of them told me that they could not do any surgery for me and I would have to be bedridden for as long as I lived," she said.
Hadeel was then referred to Burjeel Hospital in Dubai where Dr Firas Husban, consultant orthopaedic surgeon specialised in spine surgery, performed a complex procedure to remove the tumour and correct the spine status. 
"The patient had breast cancer in an advanced stage and she had metastasis on the spinal column," said Dr Firas. "The tumour had also eaten some parts of the bone and caused fracture of vertebras and severe compression over the spinal cord and the nerve root resulting on complete paraplegia (loss of sensation, motion of the lower limb and loss of control over the urine and stool)," he said.
The surgery lasted for more than 10 hours. "We excised the tumour and the destructed parts of the bones and reconstructed the spinal column after stabilising it by screws and rods to correct it to the normal alignment by protecting the spinal cord and nerve roots," he said.
Hadeel was discharged a few days after the surgery. And a month later, with the help of physiotherapy, she was walking normally and also driving 
"The first thing I did was to drive to all other doctors I had consulted earlier to show them I can walk again," said Hadeel.
 asmaalizain@khaleejtimes.com