Ashley’s one in a million
A little girl who would seem like any other two-year-old, Ashley Keet was born with an extremely rare brain malformation on 9 June 2015.
Ashley Keet was born with a vein of Galen malformation (VOGM) in her brain, a malformation that only occurs in one in a million children.
A week after she was born, she and her mother, Klarissa, were discharged from hospital with what they thought at the time was simply issues with feeding.
A week later, they went back for a sonar of her brain. The result? “Bleeding on the brain that was gone.”
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From there on, Ashley had no issues with development, learning to walk at 10 months, and ‘Pappa’ being her first word.
“She was a normal child, I mean if you looked at her, you’d see nothing but a normal two-year-old girl,” her mother said.
Then out of the blue in January 2017, Ashley suffered a seizure that left her entire right side lame, with a number of symptoms similar to those of a heart-attack.
“After the seizure, she was walking completely normally, showing absolutely no symptoms, and doctors scheduled a CAT scan for the next day.”
Results showed a big blob in her brain.
Klarissa said that the doctors were amazing when it came to explaining everything to them. “They sent her for a chest x-ray as this condition can often affect the heart and lungs, but to their surprise she was 100 per cent healthy, apart from the blob in her brain.”
Ashley suffered her second seizure on Valentine’s Day, with her entire left side going lame this time.
Following her second seizure, doctors at the Rahima Moosa Hospital suggested that the cause could be bleeding on the brain, and the Keet family were referred to the Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital (IALCH) in Durban.
It was here that the doctors carried out an MRI scan, which confirmed the vein of Galen malformation (VOGM).
It was also at IALCH that Ashley underwent two operations in March 2017 to try to reduce the size of the VOGM.
She has not suffered another seizure since the second operation, and has continued developing normally.
Ashley was taken for a follow-up MRI scan in late September 2017, at the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital. The family is eagerly waiting for the results, as the scan is still being checked.
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