{"id":9481,"date":"2022-04-06T11:49:14","date_gmt":"2022-04-06T01:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/?p=9481"},"modified":"2022-04-08T10:59:32","modified_gmt":"2022-04-08T00:59:32","slug":"puppy-and-i-are-doing-just-fine-meet-ayla","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/puppy-and-i-are-doing-just-fine-meet-ayla\/","title":{"rendered":"Ayla on road to health after nine-hour brain surgery"},"content":{"rendered":"

Words:<\/strong>\u00a0Brigid O\u2019Connell
\nPhoto:<\/strong>\u00a0Alex Coppel<\/p>\n

It took nine months of riding a merry-go-round of recurrent sickness and visits to doctors before the sinister \u00adsecret growing at the back of Ayla Topcubasi\u2019s brain was \u00adfinally revealed.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Ayla receiving treatment for a brain tumour.
Picture: Alex Coppel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Regular ear infections and soaring temperatures that dominated the first half of last year for Ayla were put down to the most obvious culprit \u2013 starting at childcare.<\/p>\n

In the six months since her brain tumour was discovered, the two and a half year old has undergone two brain surgeries, 30 doses of radiation and three rounds of chemotherapy.<\/p>\n

Each time a test or procedure is performed, The Royal Children\u2019s Hospital (RCH) staff first carry it out on her best friend, stuffed toy Puppy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like they\u2019re sharing what they\u2019re going through together,\u201d mum Meltem Kirca said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven with her little language, she knows why she\u2019s in hospital. We talk through everything as we go.\u201d<\/p>\n

By September, after yet \u00adanother course of antibiotics had not worked, Ms Kirca took her daughter straight to the RCH emergency department.<\/p>\n

The doctor asked Ms Kirca if her daughter could look into the light. Ayla could not. This was a vital clue. Something serious was going on.<\/p>\n

Over the next two days, Ayla passed every test doctors put her through.<\/p>\n

But when a nasal gastric feeding tube could not help her keep nutrients down, she was taken for an MRI scan.<\/p>\n

The scan found a tumour, an ependymoma, growing at the base of her brain.<\/p>\n

It was blocking the cerebral spinal fluid \u2013 the clear liquid that bathes the brain and spinal cord \u2013 from leaving her skull.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was in shock, I couldn\u2019t even move. That day was the worst day in my life,\u201d Ms Kirca said.<\/p>\n

Ayla was wheeled straight into theatre for emergency surgery to drain the fluid building up in her brain.<\/p>\n

Two days later, neurosurgeon Wirginia Maixner performed a nine-hour operation to remove the 3cm tumour.<\/p>\n

With one round of chemotherapy to go, Ms Kirca said she had \u201cbig hopes\u201d for her youngest daughter.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe doctors are telling us that it\u2019s looking very good,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just don\u2019t want this to come back to her again. If you\u2019ve got health, you don\u2019t need anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thanks to your generous support, we can make a difference to children like Ayla and support world-leading care at the RCH. Click here to donate today to the Good Friday Appeal.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It took nine months of riding a merry-go-round of recurrent sickness and visits to doctors before the sinister \u00adsecret growing at the back of Ayla’s brain was \u00adfinally revealed. Click here to read her story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":229,"featured_media":9482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8971,7198,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-good-friday-appeal","category-in-the-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/229"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9481"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9503,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9481\/revisions\/9503"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}