A perfect procedure

 

Washington County native Morgan Dysert was finishing up her freshman year at the University of Minnesota in spring 2010. The athletic student figured the minor eye problems she was experiencing came from late-night study sessions. But her vision continued to worsen for a week, so she consulted an ophthalmologist.

The doctor couldn’t find anything wrong with Morgan’s eyes, but suggested she get a brain scan, to be safe. “That’s when we found out about the brain tumor,” Morgan recalls, “and so my mom immediately said, ‘I’ve heard about this Dr. Aziz — we should see him!’” Morgan’s mother was a director of nursing at Allegheny General Hospital, so she was already familiar with Dr. Khaled Aziz, director of the hospital’s Center of Complex Intracranial Surgery.

Morgan’s tumor, called a trigeminal schwannoma, was rare. And it was growing — already impacting the nerves that controlled eye movement and facial sensations. Her face was beginning to go numb. The tumor was benign, but her symptoms would continue to worsen and eventually become unbearable.

Dr. Aziz confirmed that it was a trigeminal schwannoma — and had more difficult news for Morgan and her family: Although these tumors can sometimes be treated with radiation, hers was too advanced. Morgan’s best removal option was a complicated, dangerous operation; the procedure would be particularly difficult due to the tumor’s location underneath her brain, near delicate nerves and the vital carotid artery.

Normally, risks associated with this surgery include bleeding, strokes and infections — yet Morgan says that Dr. Aziz approached her and her family with a confidence and compassion that allayed their fears. “He told me and my mother [about] everything that would happen [in the surgery] and all the horrible things that could go wrong — but [my mom] came out of that discussion smiling and believing everything would be fine. [That discussion] sticks with me. That was amazing.”

The surgery Dr. Aziz and his team performed on Morgan took about eight hours (the first hours were spent on the crucial positioning of Morgan for the extremely precise procedures to come). A separate team of specialists was involved in preparing an electro visiologic monitoring system, which would watch her nervous system function throughout the surgery.