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Media - Canberra Times
Risky surgery 'the best gift' for patient Exclusive By Danielle Cronin Stephanie Antoniello, 24, had a "time bomb" in her brain which left her partially paralysed and could have eventually killed her. The Bankstown resident was "gutted" when Sydney specialists ruled out surgery to fix the problem, arguing it was too risky to operate. But in a lucky twist, Ms Antoniello saw a story about the Canberra Hospital team who performed life-saving brain surgery on a patient who was awake. Last year, retired bus driver John James, 78, had ground-breaking surgery to remove an aneurysm threatening to rupture and cause vision loss. Ms Antoniello wrote to one of the neurosurgeons, Vini Khurana, who was "extremely struck" by her plea for help. "It was a very moving letter, a very emotional letter," Dr Khurana told The Canberra Times. "I got the impression that she was extremely confused as to what to do and extremely debilitated by what was going on in her life medically and ... that she'd kind of reached the end of her tether." Ms Antoniello was only 14 years old when doctors discovered she had an arteriovenous malformation - an abnormal tangle of blood vessels that had ruptured in the brain. She had radiation therapy, which shrank the growth but caused a new problem that went undetected until 2006. She had a cavernoma - a cluster of rupture-prone blood sacs that had repeatedly haemorrhaged into her brain and grown to the size of a "small bunch of grapes" in the past few years. Ms Antoniello said she was partially paralysed on the left side of her body and the problem was getting worse. "I also just suffered from significant symptoms such as sharp pains, strains, headaches, dizziness, nausea," "I was like a walking drunk basically and I was a prisoner in my own home for over a year." Sydney specialists ruled out surgery and one of them recommended more radiation but she refused, given the treatment had been what triggered the problem. "I was told that I had to live the rest of my life the way I was and obviously I was gutted," she said. But she saw a story about Dr Khurana, appealed for his help and had surgery at Canberra Hospital a month ago. Dr Khurana said the problem was on the right side of her brain relatively deep in "high-priced real estate". "I told her that in order to get this out, because of its size and its depth and its location, that the best and safest way to get it out would be by keeping her awake during the surgery so that we could test her sensation and movement functions while we removed as much of this as we could," he said. The patient was awake for one hour during the four-hour operation but Ms Antoniello said she was not scared because she trusted the team. "I was fine. It was like getting my hair done and before you know it I was out." Dr Khurana said he had successfully removed the growth as well as remnants of the arteriovenous malformation. Ms Antoniello spent about five days in Canberra Hospital and displayed "dramatic improvement" in her neurological function before she was sent home. "As far as we can tell post-operatively, she should be cured of her problems," Dr Khurana said. "She should be A-okay now and I don't anticipate any further problems in her lifetime." Ms Antoniello sees a physiotherapist once a week and exercises every day. She had regained movement on the left side of her body but the "sensation" had not completely returned, which should happen in time. "But I think right now it's the best gift given to me this new life," she said. "I feel like a big burden has been lifted off my shoulders. Vini is a highly respectable, humble man. He made me feel really, really safe. He made me feel comfortable with everything that was going to happen. We're pretty blessed to have a neurosurgeon like Vini." Dr Khurana has performed this type of surgery on seven patients at Canberra Hospital and is preparing for his
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