Boy’s skull cut up and replaced in vital op
A SCHOOLBOY who was born with a very rare condition needed his skull removed, broken apart and “pieced back together” during a nine-hour operation.
Leo Hutchinson, five, was diagnosed with sagittal craniosynostosis before he could even walk.
The condition caused his skull to fuse prematurely and crush parts of his brain.
Doctors in Birmingham carried out a risky procedure on the youngster which involved taking out his skull, “cutting it up into pieces” and putting it back together, his mum says.
Without surgery, medics said Leo would have gone blind or even suffered severe brain damage.
“I’m so proud of him. I look at him every day and I’m thankful he’s here,” said his mum, Georgia Hutchinson, from Ely, Cardiff.
“I’m just pleased I kept on and on to my health professional that there was something wrong.
“Motherly instinct told me something wasn’t right,” she added.
“I told the health visitor and she referred us to St David’s Hospital in Canton.
“They said there was a 98% chance that he had the condition. The soft spot in the middle of his head had already been fused.”
Georgia said the results were sent to specialists in Birmingham because of their expertise in treating the condition.
“They basically took every bit of his skull out, cut it all up into pieces, put holes and slits in it and put it back together.”
Leo then started making great progress and was sitting up and crawling within months – but two years later things took a bad turn and the family had to make another trip to Birmingham.
“This time, instead of taking the skull out they inserted two sliders on each side of his skull. It was then my job to turn these sliders with a special key to relieve any press on his brain.”
Now Leo, a pupil at Herbert Thompson Primary School in Ely, is making amazing progress and is a doting brother to his two younger siblings, Coby and Myah.