"Frank" is dead.
You may recall the story of David Dingman-Grover, a nine-year-old boy with a potentially fatal brain tumor he nicknamed "Frank."
His family had no insurance and could not afford the surgery he needed.
They put up an eBay auction, offering a bumper sticker saying "Frank Must Die" in return for the winning bid, which hopefully would be high enough to pay for the surgery.
Dr. Hrayr Shahinian, a neurosurgeon at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, heard of the boy's plight and offered to perform the surgery for free.
At 10 a.m. yesterday in Los Angeles, 9-year-old David Dingman-Grover was wheeled into the operating room.
Dr. Shahinian inserted a fiber-optic tube the width of a drinking straw into David's nose and up through the bony cribriform plate directly into the boy's brain.
Using this endoscopic approach, the neurosurgeon then resected most of an embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma, including the portion that was impinging on the boy's optic nerves and carotid arteries.
By a little after noon, David was awake and asking for his mom and Ben, his teddy bear.
He's being discharged home today.
"Frank Is Dead" - and may he never return.
Article comments
1 - Diet Doc
Wonderful post. You made my day. Thanks.
Cheers,
Ron
2 - rob
david is very fortunate to have found dr. shahinian. he did life changing surgery on our daughter, and we are forever thankful to him.
3 - James Stanley
I am so glad to hear that david is doing well.My two teenagers had cancer at the same time and it is hell on earth.I never felt so useless in my life.Cancer is a terrible thing.