Radical brain surgery frees baby held captive by seizures | News Updates | Idaho Statesman
Evan Stauff smiles and giggles. He mimics his father in making silly noises. He loves to play with toys and watch cartoons.
The 19-month-old didn’t do any of those things before undergoing surgery this past winter to remove half of his brain, a procedure that’s called a “hemispherectomy.” His family noticed a change in his behavior almost immediately — starting with his ability to focus on family members, rather than look through them.
“It’s already a miracle,” said Evan’s grandmother, Karen Sands of Payette. “He’s a person now; he wasn’t before.”
Evan was diagnosed with infantile spasms when he was almost 3 months old. The spasms were the result of a specific kind of epilepsy that develops in young children.
They came in clusters, and his episodes lasted five to 15 minutes. Evan’s dad, 31-year-old David Stauff, believes he witnessed his baby go through thousands of spasms over a seven-month period before the surgery. [...]
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Katy Moeller: 377-6413
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