MIAMI (WSVN) - A Florida Keys teen who suffered from brain aneurysms is back to doing her favorite activities after doctors performed a life-saving surgery.
Speaking with reporters on Monday, 13-year old Sasha Gadea said she plenty to celebrate for the holidays.
“I feel great,” she said.
When she was just 11 years old, Gadea said, she began getting headaches.
At first, her parents thought it was an issue with her vision because she wears glasses, but they quickly realized it was a more pressing concern.
“I had headaches often, and there would be times my vision would black out, I guess?” said Gadea. “Like, my eye would turn black, and I would not be able to see.”
Gadea was rushed from her home in Key Largo to Holtz Children’s Hospital in Miami, where doctors ran tests to figure out what was wrong.
“After having vision problems, they had gotten her an imaging study which showed that she had a large tangle of blood vessels, an anteriovenous malformation, in her brain,” said Dr. Heather McCrea, a pediatric neurosurgeon at Holtz Children’s Hospital.
Doctors also found three aneurysms in her brain as well. After looking at the scans, they were concerned about the risks posed by treatment.
“For her case, her AVM was so large, that a lot of hospitals would deem it not treatable,” said Dr. Robert Starke, a neurosurgeon at Jackson Memorial Hospital.
“Anteriovenous malformations are so risky because they can rupture, and when they rupture, you can have a very large bleed that can be life-threatening for the patient or can cause major neurological symptoms,” said McCrea
Gadea’s age also posed a potential problem.
“With any AVM, there’s a percent chance of rupture each year,” said McCrea, “and when you have a young patient like Sasha, this might not rupture tomorrow, but over her lifetime, there’s a very high chance of that rupturing.”
Doctors shared their findings with Gadea’s parents, who said it was a lot to take in.
“Like you were floating, and you didn’t even know where you were,” said her mother, Yudith Gadea. “All these names and descriptions that you don’t even know. We didn’t even have a clue because we never heard about it.”
Then surgeons got to work on a cure.
“We had a multi-disciplinary meeting about the options for her case,” said Starke. “It’s nice that we have both vascular neurosurgery and pediatric neurosurgery specialists to do these cases together.”
After two long days of surgery, doctors found the surgery was a success.
“At the end of the case, we can confirm that it looked like we have resected all of the AVM,” said McCrea.
Relief washed over her parents.
“She was like nothing happened,” said her mother. “I just thank Dr. Starke and Dr. McCrea for giving new a opportunity of life to my baby girl.”
A few months later, things slowly getting back to normal. Gadea, a seventh grader, said she is looking forward to Christmas.
“The dinner, because I know Daddy cooks good,” she said.
She said she is working on figuring out her future.
“But I’m still deciding. I still have a lot of time,” she said.
Gadea still has to check in with doctors to make sure her brain condition does not return, but they said they’re confident she will live a long and healthy life.
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