A 44-year-old Freanch man went to hospital complaining of a sore leg and discovered he only had half a brain.
A father-of-two was living a normal life without realising he had a serious problem for 30 years until one day his leg started to hurt. The bizarre discovery came to light only after he was admitted to hospital and underwent a series of medical tests.
“The whole brain was reduced — frontal, parietal, temporal and occipital lobes — on both left and right sides
Lionel Feuillet, who explored the man’s brain, said: “The whole brain was reduced — frontal, parietal, temporal and occipital lobes — on both left and right sides. These regions control motion, sensibility, language, vision, audition, and emotional, and cognitive functions.”
It turned out that the man had suffered post-natal hydrocephalus, a condition in which there is an abnormal accumulation of fluid in the brain, as a baby. Doctors applied drainage tubes to his head which were removed when he was 14.
The medics believe that after the shunt’s removal the fluid continued to gather in his brainpan and gradually destroy brain matter until he lost between 50% to 75%. What is more surprising is that the man managed to survive as his brain reorganised itself over time.
Most of the brain fluid has been drained and the man was sent home to his family. The details of story that took place in 2007 has been revealed only eight years after in the Lancet medical journal.
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