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Methodist Dallas Medical Center
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Winter 2014 – 2015
NEW AT METHODIST DALLAS!
When Methodist Dallas opened the Charles A.
Sammons Tower this summer, it also
opened a brand-new neurocritical care
unit that will benefit patients like Eva.
To learn more about the new tower, visit
MethodistHealthSystem.org/BrightER .A brain under
pressure
August
2013 started like most late summers for Eva
Hernandez. The office manager of a West Dallas school, she was
preparing teacher manuals, answering parents’ phone calls, and
applying all the organizational elbow grease she could muster
before school started.
Then she started noticing headaches in the front of her head.
“By the last week of August, I couldn’t really concentrate on
what I was doing, and I kept losing paperwork,” she says. “It
kind of scared me.”
Eva called her husband, Juan, at work and said, “I need
you to take me to the doctor.”
After a couple weeks of monitoring, Eva’s doctor sent
her to Methodist Dallas Medical Center for a CT scan.
Tumor trouble
The CT scan found a benign brain tumor called
a meningioma.
“Because these tumors are slow-growing, people don’t
often have symptoms until the tumors have grown really
large and started putting pressure on the brain,” says Michael
Oh, MD, PhD, neurosurgeon with the Methodist Moody
Brain and Spine Institute at Methodist Dallas. “At that point,
tumors are a bit like real estate: Location is everything.”
Depending on a tumor’s place in the brain, it can cause vision
or hearing loss, seizures, or weakened nerve responses. If the
tumor is large enough, it can be fatal.
Eva’s tennis ball–sized tumor had to come out.
“I was so scared, but when Dr. Oh came in and showed me
the tumor on a laptop and explained the procedure, I felt a lot
better,” she says.
A better start to the school year
Dr. Oh and his colleague, neurosurgeon James Moody, MD,
removed the tumor on Friday, Sept. 13, and Eva went home the
following Tuesday.
“I didn’t realize it was going to be that fast and easy,” Eva says,
adding with a huge smile that the nursing staff made her stay at
Methodist Dallas wonderful. “They were always there for me.”
Within weeks, Eva felt great. This August when she started
preparing for the new school year, she was focused, able to
concentrate, and more organized than ever.
Additional source: National Brain Tumor Society
NEUROLOGY
▸
When Eva Hernandez needed medical care to remove
her brain tumor, she and her husband, Juan, were
impressed with their experience at Methodist Dallas.