A girl has relearned how to walk, talk and swallow after undergoing an operation rarely carried out on children, in which doctors stored part of her skull in her stomach.
Ellie Morris-Davies, who is now 16, had nine surgeries in the space of 13 weeks last year after being diagnosed with a cavernoma – a cluster of abnormal blood vessels that looks like a raspberry – which does not often have symptoms.
At one point, she worried she would “never go home” from hospital, but her mother, Joanne Morris-Davies, said she is now working “relentlessly” to get back to her passion of dancing and performing on stage.
In May last year, Ellie, who was then 15, began suffering from persistent headaches and nausea and became sensitive to light.
She was soon vomiting up to 16 times a day and, following blood tests and an MRI, Ellie was diagnosed with a bleed on her brain caused by a cavernoma.
It can cause seizures, headaches, and other neurological problems such as dizziness and slurred speech, but one in 600 people in the UK have symptomless cavernoma, according to the NHS.
A cavernoma with symptoms is diagnosed in around one person in every 400,000, usually aged between 20 and 40.
Mrs Morris-Davies, 48, from Crewe, said she was hoping it was “just a bad migraine”, but after being transferred to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool, Ellie underwent surgery.
The operations included a decompressive craniectomy, where surgeons remove part of the skull to relieve pressure, storing it in the patient’s own stomach to keep it sterile before putting it back.
Despite the life-saving procedure, Ellie deteriorated further and was rushed to intensive care.
She underwent more surgeries – due to the cavernoma, which was causing more swelling to the brain. She also contracted rare and dangerous infections before her path to recovery.
Ellie, who has been having daily physiotherapy and one-to-one sessions with her dance teacher, has gone from being unable to talk and move the left side of her body to singing on stage.
Her mother said her “headstrong” daughter’s digits and fingers “have been the last to get going, but she’s relearned to walk, talk and swallow”, and is “working on physio relentlessly”.
The teenager has been performing and dancing since she was three, appearing in pantomimes and in shows on the West End.
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Ellie recently returned to the stage to sing in a show with her dance class, which her mum described as an “emotional night”.
The teenager said: “At one point, I thought I would never go home. But the staff on ward 4A really looked after me and kept my spirits up.
“There are still things I can’t do, and it’s frustrating, but I know I’ll get there. I can’t wait to be back on stage, singing and dancing.”
