A woman from the country of Georgia, halfway around the globe, has found hope and healing in San Antonio. The medical community here has given her a gift, a chance at a long and healthy life.
It’s 7,000 miles and half a world away from Tbilisi, Georgia, a former Soviet republic, to San Antonio, Texas and the healing hands at Methodist Stone Oak Hospital. That’s where 23-year-old Armine Ustian was given her “miracle” surgery.
Ustian was in a bicycling accident when routine scans revealed a dangerous tumor. “After we took the MRI, it showed that I have a tumor and it has been growing like around five years,” Ustian said.
The tumor was the size of a ping-pong ball and it threatened to eventually paralyze her.
“It’s a nerve tumor, a benign nerve tumor,” explained Dr. Donald Hilton, one of the neurosurgeons who performed her operation. “The problem was that it was in a very sensitive location. It was wedged in the upper part of the spinal cord.”
Since Georgian doctors didn’t feel qualified to operate, Hilton and Methodist Stone Oak Hospital decided to donate their services. An initial procedure involved blocking a nearby artery. Then neurosurgeons went after the tumor itself.
The five-hour long operation involved a series of telescoping tubes to enter her neck in a minimally-invasive fashion. Powerful microscopes and illumination enabled doctors to peel away the layers while leaving the spinal cord and critical nerves intact.
Ustian’s tumor was successfully removed last week. She’ll be able to head back home to her son, Davit, in February.
“I have no words to explain how grateful I am and so thankful for everybody from my church to my doctor to the hospital and everybody who made this possible for me,” Ustian emphasized.
Hilton said, “we felt it’s something we wanted to do and I’m just grateful to Methodist Hospital and to all of the physicians who assisted. It was our great privilege to do this.”
This is the first time Ustian has traveled to the United States. She says she’s amazed by the first-class medical care and thankful she found compassionate health care workers willing to help her.
