A young girl is having difficulty recovering from a serious surgery this week. The procedure was not meant to be intense but the surgeons claim they were forced to make a change during the operation.
NBC news reports on the youngster's recovery.
A young girl has a rare brain condition that causes her to overeat in excessive amounts. Her weight was over two hundred pounds when her doctors decided she needed surgery, as she was only 4’7 in height.
The surgery was supposed to be a routine procedure but the surgeon’s changed their plan mid-surgery. The girl is only twelve years old and facing a serious recovery period. Her surgeons claim she will still lose weight and be healthier than before.
“Instead of the gastric bypass operation and procedure to cut part of her vagus nerve they expect to perform, Dr. Inge and his crew had to adjust their plans because Alexis' liver was bigger and fattier than anticipated. Instead, they performed a sleeve gastrectomy to remove up to 80 percent of her stomach. He said it wasn't a medical complication, but a clinical decision to alter plans. Doctors knew her liver was large, but couldn't tell how difficult it would be to manipulate it until they got into surgery,” according to NBC.
It is unclear what effect this will have on Alexis but her surgeon is optimistic. He told NBC, “It's not disappointing at all. Our goal is do to a safe operation under circumstances that are not always 100 percent predictable."
The other operations are being put on hold for now. NBC explains, “Inge said doctors will wait to see how Alexis responds to the surgery before deciding whether to go ahead with the gastric bypass and vagus nerve operations. Patients sometimes lose less weight with the sleeve procedure than with gastric bypass, Inge said. However, it's very common to perform bypass surgery after a sleeve gastrectomy, he added.”
