Little Samuel Méthot avoided the most serious postoperative complications and is responding well to the delicate brain operation he underwent. He is now embarking on a long process which his doctors hope will one day allow him to speak.
• Read also: [EN IMAGES] Delicate and very rare, little Samuel’s operation went well
• Read also: Rare Brain Surgery Could Cure Boy With Epilepsy
“He wakes up well, he plays, he moves his eyes well. Like the parents, I hope the best for him. I keep my fingers crossed, ”says neurosurgeon Dr. Roy Dudley, who operated on the 9-year-old boy for nearly eight hours on Wednesday at the Montreal Children’s Hospital.
The specialist was also happy to confirm that the boy, suffering from severe epilepsy, does not suffer from “disconnection syndrome”. This is a possible effect following this type of operation, which can affect coordination, in particular.
Photo provided by Samuel’s mother, Meggie Perron
Awake periods
Yesterday, Samuel showed more and more periods of wakefulness and seemed less affected by pain, says his mother, Meggie Perron.
Already, a specialized team, made up of a physiotherapist, a speech therapist and an occupational therapist was at work to help him walk and regain his skills.
Talk
Over the next few months, the ultimate goal will be to give him a voice. An ability that epilepsy unfortunately did not allow him to develop.
“I hope so [qu’il parlera]. But, is it a job that will take months, six months, twelve months? We don’t know yet,” says the neurosurgeon.
By then, Ms. Perron was delighted to see that her son was making “great progress”, barely a few hours following having been operated on.
“He has good eye tracking and he gave a little smile,” she said, happy to finally be able to hug her son. “Thursday already, he was clapping us in the hand, as before. It’s a way we have to communicate,” she added.
Photo provided by Samuel’s mother, Meggie Perron
A tattoo as a support guide
It must be said that the wait was long for the mother, during the intervention.
While her son was in the middle of an operation, Ms. Perron decided to go for a walk outside the hospital, to “change her mind”. She entered “on a whim” in a tattoo parlor, where he got a tattoo “Your battle is mine [Ta bataille est la mienne] in support of his son.
“It was my way of suffering in a way, while my son was having brain surgery,” she says, emotional.
Rare intervention
Callosotomy, the rare neurosurgical procedure that Samuel underwent, aims to completely cut the “corpus callosum” which connects the two hemispheres of the brain, in order to circumscribe epileptic activity during seizures.
Dr. Dudley says he performed this type of procedure once last October. But, the previous time was five years ago, he says. “It’s very rare, but very important for very specific patients,” he says.
According to him, the intervention made on Samuel’s brain might make it possible to precisely identify his “epileptic focus”, in order to possibly eliminate it completely.
“Another operation might be done exactly where the seizures start, to make it even more likely that the seizures will stop completely,” he explains.
