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NEUROLOGY and
STROKE CLINIC
Suffered at stroke at age
3
Kaylee loves
to go to movies with her father, James. But two years ago,
as they watched the movie Robots, Kaylee suffered a stroke.
She was
3 years old.
“Kaylee was
unable to walk, and we rushed to a hospital in Sugar Land
where we were told she had had a stroke,” James said. “They
sent us to Texas Children’s. After reviewing the CT scan,
Dr. (Gary) Clark discovered the arteries leading to her
brain were open only 30 to 50 percent on each side.”
Dr. Gary
Clark, chief of Texas Children’s
Pediatric Neurology and
Developmental Neuroscience, immediately called on the Stroke
Clinic team, a multidisciplinary group that includes Texas
Children’s physicians
Dr. Robert Dauser, clinic chief of
Neurosurgery, and
Dr. Donald Mahoney, chief of Hematology,
along with Dr. Michel Mawad, interventional neuroradiologist
at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital.
As Kaylee’s
condition worsened, Mawad performed a brain angioplasty, a
procedure to preserve and save brain function until she was
strong enough for another kind of surgery. Kaylee is
believed to be the youngest patient to receive a brain
angioplasty.
“Without the
rapid response of the stroke team and the brain angioplasty,
Kaylee would not be with us today,” James said. “We didn’t
know if the procedure would work, but she came through it
beautifully.”
The next
morning Kaylee was able to move her face and hand.
Two weeks
later, Dauser was able to perform the surgery Kaylee needed
so badly – a dural inversion. Developed by Dauser, this
procedure allows new blood vessels to grow into the brain by
flipping the covering of the brain upside down over the
surface of the brain. Since Kaylee’s problems were on both
sides, surgery was performed on two occasions.
One week
after the dural inversion on her right side she was having
physical therapy, and a few months later she was running and
ready for the next surgery.
Today, Kaylee
still likes to run, and she also enjoys writing and
coloring. She attends kindergarten and still loves movies.
“It’s a
different world for her now,” her mother, Holly, said.
“Kaylee rides a bike, with a helmet of course, and is a
typical 5-year-old.”
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