Doctors disconnect half of 6-year-old’s brain in life-changing surgery

LOS ANGELES (KABC) - A 6-year-old California girl with a rare brain disease underwent surgery to disconnect half of her brain, a treatment that doctors say will help stop her daily seizures.

Brianna Bodley, 6, recently underwent a 10-hour surgery to disconnect half of her brain. She was diagnosed last year with Rasmussen’s encephalitis, a rare, chronic inflammatory disease that affects about 500 children in the United States every year.

“After surgery, her entire left side of her body is turned off,” said Brianna’s mother, Crystal Bodley.

Before the surgery, Brianna had daily seizures that could eventually lead to learning disabilities and paralysis. She was treated with anti-seizure medication and steroids, but the disease kept progressing.

“Her leg would bend up all the time, and she would have trouble walking,” her mother said.

Dr. Aaron Robison, a pediatric neurosurgeon at Loma Linda University Health, said Brianna’s brain was shrinking as the seizures and inflammation damaged one side of the organ. He said the best option was to shut down half her brain.

“Just disconnecting it is enough to stop the disease completely and, essentially, potentially cure it,” Robison said.

In the old days, doctors used to remove half of the brain, but that led to more complications. Now, you can simply disconnect the nonfunctioning part of the brain.

With the surgery completed, the left side of Brianna’s brain is hard at work, taking over what the right side used to do.

Doctors say even with half a brain, you can still live a whole life.

“Brianna will still be the same person, even after disconnecting half her brain,” Robison said.

The 6-year-old may lose some peripheral vision and fine motor skills in her left hand, but with various types of physical therapy, doctors expect she will be back to her old self, living seizure free.

“I just want to see little Brianna running around, doing her artwork and having the fun she always had,” said the girl’s grandmother, Chris Breheim.

The family has set up a GoFundMe to help with expenses.

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