— needs urgent life-saving treatment

BECOMING a teenager is every child’s dream, but reaching the milestone marked a life threatening challenge for young Mikelle Brutus. Weeks after reaching 13, in July 2015, the daughter of Michael and Malicia Brutus started to experience pain in the head; and it began to worry not just her parents, but everyone around her. The frequent headaches prompted her parents to take her to local Neurosurgeon Dr. Amarnauth Dukhi who, after conducting a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), discovered that a tumour was lodged in the left side of Mikelle’s brain.
“I diagnosed her with a brain tumour, and (was) to follow up with other scans of the head. I never saw her back until earlier this year, when the Junior Minister of Public Health sent her with a letter for me to evaluate her,” Dr. Dukhi told Guyana Chronicle.

The analysis, done at Dr. Dukhi’s clinic at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC), showed that the young lady had a malignant brainstem tumour. This, he explained, is a “diffuse intrinsic brainstem tumour”, which is highly aggressive and difficult to treat, since these tumours are at the base of the brain.

They are glial tumours, meaning they arise from the brain’s glial tissue — tissue made up of cells that help support and protect the brain’s neurons, says doctors from Boston Children’s Hospital, one of the best paediatric hospitals in the USA.
INOPERABLE
Mikelle’s father Michael told Guyana Chronicle that he sought a second opinion from Caribbean neurosurgeon Professor Ivor Crandon, and he advised that the tumour was inoperable.
“Unfortunately this is true, and I have the same opinion that this malignant brain stem glioma is inoperable because since it’s a diffuse intrinsic tumour of the brainstem. Any surgical intervention attempting to remove it will provoke extensive collateral injuries which will likely result in death,” Dr. Dukhi said.
Patients with these types of brainstem tumours have very poor prognoses, regardless of whether surgical intervention and radio/chemotherapy are done. Brainstem tumours are the most risky and difficult brain tumours to safely remove; while others, such as meningioma — a tumour that forms on membranes that cover the brain and spinal cord just inside the skull — are most times operated on and removed successfully, with favourable recovery.
Dr. Dukhi also pointed out that some brain tumour operations were done in Guyana, and he had done some of them.
“I have successfully removed more than 25 brain tumours since I returned to work in Guyana in January 2015, but Brutus’s case is highly risky,” he said.
Her parents have, nevertheless, not lost hope. Months after it was deemed inoperable, when all hope was fading, the Brutus family received a letter from specialists in Miami, Florida, who said radiotherapy or chemotherapy could be done to treat the ailment.
FINANCIAL HURDLE
But the family is now faced with another hurdle, this time a financial one.
According to Michael, the treatment is priced at US$172,500, which is equivalent to Gy$34.5M.
The sum is, however, expected to inflate, and this would then take it to an estimated total of Gy$50M, the child’s father said.
Unable to meet this high cost to save the life of their child, the family is pleading with the corporate community, religious bodies, and the Government to contribute to this worthy cause.
Young Mikelle told Guyana Chronicle that she wants to become a pastor when she gets older.
Being a high-spirited child since from her younger days, and being the eldest of seven siblings, her father said, Mikelle is always positive and full of life.
“She was always an ‘A’ grade student, who enjoyed dancing and singing, especially in church. However, when she developed the symptoms, she started dropping back in her grades… She is truly a daughter of the soil, and no parent would ever want to see their child dwindle away without putting up a serious fight,” the father said as he fought back tears.
The tumour has paralysed Mikelle’s right side. Her right hand is almost completely immobile, while her right leg is deformed.
Despite the journey ahead, her parents remain optimistic, as they believe that their daughter would be healed.
Mikelle should have been in the USA since November last year, but, unto now, her family is unable to raise the money for her treatment.
Persons overseas desirous of making a financial contribution to the Brutus family can do so through Republic Bank, 38-40 Water Street, Georgetown, Guyana, using swift code: RBGLGYGG, account number: 2653475. Contact with the family can be made on telephone number 694-6500.