WhiteBoard News for Saturday, November 16, 2002

London, England (CNN):

A pioneering heart operation performed on an unborn baby 18 months ago has been hailed a success by surgeons.

The micro-surgical technique allowed the mother to carry her child to full term, avoiding premature birth-related complications.

Doctors from London's Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust and the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS trust developed a technique of dilating underdeveloped pulmonary valves while the baby was in the womb.

Abnormal closure of the pulmonary valves means that blood cannot circulate freely through the heart.

This prevents growth of one side of the baby's organ, causing life threatening complications during pregnancy.

Until now there have only been 14 reported similar attempts to perforate or stretch cardiac valves worldwide, with all but one on the aortic valve. Only half have been technically successful and there has been one long-term survivor.

Dr Helena Gardiner, leading the London research, told The Lancet: "For the first time in the UK we've successfully performed balloon dilation.

"With more experience, better equipment and a growing understanding of the foetus, this technique could be developed to help other unborn babies in danger of heart failure."

The pioneering operation, carried out through the mother's abdomen using ultrasound technology for guidance, resulted in immediately improved circulation and normal ventricular growth for the baby.

The child is now healthy, has good blood circulation and a healthy heart, according to doctors.
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Oslo, Norway (Aftenposten):

A Norwegian woman has regained her sight during her pregnancy.

Before she became pregnant, Mona Ramdal only had 15% vision.

But during the course of the pregnancy her sight improved so dramatically she passed her driving test at the first attempt.

According to Aftenposten eye doctor Per Hvamstad, who has treated 29-year-old Ms Ramdal since the end of the 1970s, says he has never heard of a similar case.

"It is really quite unbelievable. It is a miracle. I cannot explain what has happened," Dr Hamstad told the Norwegian newspaper VG.

Ms Ramdal was born with toxoplasmosis, an infection which can cause eye or brain damage in children. Her right eye has always had severely limited vision.

When she turned 13 her left eye also began to fail, and gradually her vision was reduced to 15% in that eye. But when Ms Ramdal became pregnant the sight in her left eye began to return.

By the time daughter Anne-Marthe, now a year old, was born, Ms Ramdal could see normally.

Dr Hvamstad said: "The retina is by definition a part of the brain. That which is destroyed is destroyed forever. That is why someone who has been terribly visually impaired suddenly seeing normally cannot be explained."
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Cape Coral, Florida (AP):

A hungry customer cut her way through a McDonald's drive-thru line but no one dared complain. 

A four-ton elephant named Tina showed up at a McDonald's in Cape Coral on Wednesday morning, happily swallowing 10 veggie burgers that she grabbed from workers by sticking her snout through the drive-thru window. 

The stunt was a promotion for a visiting circus. 

"It was a lot of fun," said McDonald's worker Missy Williams, 34. "Her snout was kind of wet, though." 

Choosing veggie burgers for Tina's menu wasn't part of any diet plan that the Asian elephant is adhering to. Elephants just don't eat meat. 

"She's pretty slim, as far as elephants go," said Adam Hill, the elephant's handler. 

The Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros. Circus was performing in Cape Coral through Thursday
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Harriman, Tennessee (AP):

The bride wore white bandages from head to broken foot. The groom, in a donated tuxedo, stood unsteadily at her hospital bedside. 

Jimmi Langley and Ronnie Ray, two 18-year-old survivors of a deadly tornado that swept through their mountain community on Sunday, exchanged vows in the intensive care unit Thursday. 

They tied the knot just one day late by moving the ceremony from a church to the bride's room at Roane Medical Center, where she was being treated for two broken arms, the broken foot and other injuries. Her bridegroom, with numerous cuts and bruises, arrived in a wheelchair. 

"Will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him in sickness and in health ... so long as you both shall live?" asked the Rev. Stewart Slone, pastor of their Church of God of Prophecy in Petros. 

"I do," Jimmi said with a weak voice and a bright smile. 

Ronnie lifted her veil and kissed her. They celebrated with sparkling apple cider. 

Their community of Mossy Grove in eastern Tennessee was one of the hardest hit when more than 70 tornadoes cut a path of destruction from Louisiana to Pennsylvania over the weekend. Thirty-six people were killed, including 17 in Tennessee. 

Ronnie and Jimmi had planned to marry in church on Wednesday, exactly two years after they met. Then came the tornado. The couple took shelter in his mobile home, hiding in the bathtub under heavy blankets. 

"The trailer was completely annihilated," hospital spokeswoman Karen Martin said. "When they came to, they were in different places." 

The bathtub with Jimmi still in it landed across the street from the trailer. 

The couple were reunited at the hospital. 

Jimmi told nurses that she had lost her home, but she wouldn't lose her wedding. "I had to have more surgery Tuesday and we couldn't do it," she said. "I was determined not to put it off any longer." 

"Whatever she wants," Ronnie told the hospital staff. 

"Good answer," the nurses told him. 

Gifts from a wedding shower a week before, their rings, even her salon-styled fingernails were gone, so the hospital staff and local merchants pitched in. 

A marriage license was secured to replace the one blown away, white netting decorated the room, and an off-the-rack wedding dress was fashioned into a one-of-a-kind hospital gown. 

With her parents, his mother and two aunts attending, they performed the 15-minute ceremony, accompanied by a nursing supervisor singing a cappella. 

"When the nurses mentioned it, I said it sounded like a good idea," Jimmi said of her hospital bed wedding. "I didn't expect it to be this big, though." 
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Chow
SuperChef
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