16-year-old can bend his back again

CHENNAI: A 16-year-old Sri Lankan boy, who had a severely bent spine, underwent two complex surgeries at a city hospital, and is able to stand straight again. “His scoliosis (bending of the spine) was at the stage where if we had not corrected it now, the deformity would have grown larger and it would have become permanent,” explained Dr K Sridhar, Director - Neurosurgery, Global Hospitals and Health City. The story of how young Mohamed Meshari ended up coming all the way from Colombo is quite astonishing. Apparently, Dr Sridhar had been in Colombo on a lecture series in some hospitals there, when the boy’s case was presented as a case study. Following a referral, Meshari’s case was taken up by the team at Global in February.“His sister also had the same problem but we managed to get the surgical correction done in the UK,” said the boy’s father Mohammed Fahin. This supported the medical experts’ opinion that his condition could have genetic strings attached. The case history told doctors that his spine had been curving from birth, indicating a congenital condition. “He had been going to school and was supposed to take his tenth grade exams when the problems began,” adds the now relieved father. Horrendous back pain aside, the boy’s chest had become smaller on one side, which was causing laboured breathing.The complex surgery was done as two separate operations: first, his chest was opened up and the neurosurgeons corrected the bend in the spine as best as they could, “We removed a wedge from the bent side, so that the curvature was brought down,” he explained and added, “At best we were hopeful of correcting about 65-70 per cent of the bend as anything more could have damaged the spinal cord that runs through.” Titanium screws were placed to hold the spine in the new curve, in a second surgery, four days after.Each of the operations took in excess of 10 hours each and were extremely tricky. “It’s not that the spine is just bent, but it is rotated by a certain anglew. But had we over-corrected, he could have been paralysed for life,” said Dr Sridhar. This is where the neuro-anasthesia team, led by Dr Ponniah had to wake the boy up, immediately after the correction was done, to check if there was no damage done. “Thankfully everything went well and my son is able to walk normally, without pain,” said the overjoyed father.