It was feared Ellie Morris-Davies, from Crewe, Cheshire, would never come home from hospital after surgery following a cavernoma, which can cause dizziness and slurring
A teenager who had part of her skull stored in her stomach while medics performed a rare operation has had to relearn how to walk, talk and even swallow.
Ellie Morris-Davies, 16, had a brain bleed caused by a cavernoma – a cluster of abnormal blood vessels that resembles a raspberry. She had surgery nine times in 13 weeks last year and feared she would never go home from hospital. Her mum Joanne, 48, said her daughter is now working relentlessly to get back to dancing. The teenager has been performing since she was three, appearing in pantomimes and shows in the West End.
Ellie began to get headaches and nausea in May last year and soon she was vomiting up to 16 times a day. An MRI revealed a bleed on her brain caused by a cavernoma. One in 600 people in the UK lives with symptomless cavernomas. But each year, one in every 400,000 is diagnosed with a cavernoma with symptoms such as dizziness and slurring.
Joanne, who is from Crewe, Cheshire, said: “I’d never heard of them (cavernomas). When we went to A&E… they said they thought it had been there a while.”
‘My epilepsy was misdiagnosed for over 4 years, I felt like I was going crazy’
Ellie was transferred to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool for surgery. But as the risk of further bleeds remained high, surgeons performed a decompressive craniectomy, removing part of the skull to relieve pressure and storing it in Ellie’s stomach to keep it sterile before it was reinserted.
Consultant paediatric neurosurgeon at Alder Hey, Benedetta Pettorini, said the op was rarely performed on children, “but in some selected cases that’s the only way to save their lives”.
Alder Hey medics have performed fewer than 20 neurosurgeries for cavernomas in the past four years. Despite the procedure, Ellie deteriorated further and was rushed to intensive care.
Ms Pettorini said the extra operations were due to the cavernoma causing more swelling. Afterwards, Ellie could not move her left side, could not talk and communicated with a thumbs up or down.
Joanne said: “She’s had physio every day. But after seven weeks of not walking she had a bit of movement in her leg. Her fingers have been the last to get going, but she’s relearned to walk, talk and swallow. Ellie recently returned to the stage to sing with her dance class, which her mum described as an emotional night.
“I thought I would never go home,” said Ellie. “There are still things I can’t do, but I’ll get there. I can’t wait to be back on stage, singing and dancing.”
