Saumya, a nine-year-old girl from the city of Gwalior in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh underwent a six hour long brain surgery while playing the piano and video games.
The young girl, whose family only shared her first name, was suffering from a brain tumour that caused her epileptic attacks. However, due to complications, the doctors realised it would be too risky to make her unconscious during the surgery as it could damage her nerves. To cope with the surgery while fully conscious, Saumya played the piano.
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The local anaesthetic was only injected to the part of her head which was cut for the surgery. “It ensured that she was not in pain, and by keeping her conscious, we were able to gauge her reactions and constantly check that she was okay,” Abhishek Chouhan, one of the doctor’s from the Birla Institute of Medical Research who led the operation, told VICE World News. According to Chouhan, this was the first time this procedure was used on a child.
Those who undergo the procedure, called awake craniotomy, often rely on instruments to help the doctors monitor their movements. In February this year, 53-year-old British orchestra violinist Dagmar Turner also played her violin as doctors worked to remove her brain tumour.
This was done so that doctors could avoid damaging the areas of the brain which controlled her hand movements and coordination—as Turner’s tumour was located near the right frontal lobe of the brain which controls the movements of the left hand.
Similarly, an Indian musician suffering from dystonia, which made his muscles contract uncontrollably, went through a brain surgery while playing a guitar in 2017.
