Girl wants arm cut off to end suffering

An article in the Standard newspaper prompted many patients of Dr. Tilman Stasch, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon in Nairobi, Kenya, to bring it to his attention.

A dire situation, this 22-year-old girl suffered from a non-curable condition called Plexiform Neurofibromatosis of her shoulder and arm. The heaviness of the arm, paired with an inability to move her fingers effectively, made living a normal life impossible, not to mention succeeding in school.

Dr. Stasch and his team planned to help the patient in a 2 – stage procedure. The initial surgery was planned to assess the extent of the disease and debunk the arm as much as possible. The second surgery was planned to complete the therapy, depending on the outcome of the first op.

Standard NewsPaper Plexiform Neurofibromatosis

The first challenging surgery took place at AKUH Nairobi in March 2019. Together with his Plastic Surgical colleague, Dr. R. Boca, and Anesthetist Dr. Devi Mongare, they were able to eliminate several kilograms of tumorous tissue, making the arm lighter and hopefully better equipped for further life. After several hours of surgery, the patient was able to return to the ward and was discharged from AKUH several days later. All wounds healed without complications. The team thanked all donors and AKUH management for their financial and administrative support, to make this expensive surgery possible.

In the follow-up of our patient, we managed to get her psychological support close to her home, due to her condition she had suffered psychological traumata. Several months later, we followed up the patient, now in a much better psychological state. She was able to fully understand her condition, which had unfortunately returned – the Neurofibromatosis tissue showed signs of regrowth.

Patient, together with her family and the multidisciplinary team, decided to relieve the heavy weight by taking most of the tissue off, together with the bones.

Patient underwent further surgery in Dec 2019, which was again successful. C.N. went home shortly afterwards, now much relieved of that burden, that had influenced her life for so long…