Once in a while the human race gets it right and when they do, it's often in the fields of medicine and science. Fifteen year old Janine Leach in the United Kingdom, has a rare brain-eating disease called Rasmussen's Encephalitis.
Her symptoms include up to around one hundred seizures per day, as violent surges of electricity in her brain cause her nervous system to misfire, along with loss of motor skills, aphasia and loss of speech.
This brave young girl finally made the informed decision last year, to have an operation which she knew would involve splitting the two halves of her brain apart, in order for surgeons to cut away the diseased part of her brain.
If that doesn't already leave you with goosebumps, how about the fact that the surgeons then decided to return what they cut out, back to the inside of Janine's skull, apparently to circumvent any increased risk of blood clots?
Will someone please explain this to me? House? Hello? Anyone?
How does putting diseased matter back inside the skull, prevent any increased risk of blood clots? Thankfully, the operation succeeded in stopping the seizures, but sadly, has left Janine paralyzed on the left side of her body.
However, the doctors seem positive about her prognosis, suggesting that with physiotherapy, the pretty blond student from Sunderland in the UK., will soon be up and walking again.
Tracey, Janine's mother, said:
"She is more cheery and much more Janine like. We have seen a dramatic change in her since the operation."
Chronic pain can do that to you. Its unrelenting intensity can become your master and cause you to say and do things that you really don't mean. You snap at other people, but it's because you're so angry that nothing can be done to take your pain away.
It was nice to know that the prognosis for Janine is positive and that she'll be back to herself in no time.
I'm sure that everyone will join with me in wishing Janine the best over the new year and all the physical success she can muster in 2008.
