14-year-old boy sits straight after spine surgery

His parents Nirmal Devnath, a businessman, and Preethi Devnath noticed the boy with a strange defect in the back when he was just two-yearsold. As he grew, so did the curve on his back and it was 100 degree towards the left. This added to pressure on his heart and lungs. 

“Putting him in the gymnasium and swimming class with a hope that the deformity would naturally get corrected turned out to be futile. We reached out to doctors in Kolkata but they said a surgery could even claim his life,” his father said. 

Three months ago the boy was brought to a private hospital in Coimbatore and on December 21 he underwent a marathon nine-and-a-half hour long surgery. 

It was carried out by a team of doctors comprising orthopaedic surgeon A Sakthivel, spine surgeon R Karthikeyan and anaesthetist R Senthil Kumar. Shortly after the surgery the boy suffered breathing difficulty and was under ventilator support for 48 hours and under intensive care for three more days, before he was shifted to the room. “He began walking that day and showed improvement with physiotherapy,” chairman of the hospital G Bakthavathsalam said. 

Now 8 cm taller and a lot happier, Raj who was discharged on January 2 is now staying with his parents in a lodge and walks to the hospital daily for physiotherapy. He will be flying back to Kolkata, shortly, and is all set to focus on physiotherapy so that he can play football in six months.