When Gina Lavis was pregnant with her daughter, Frankie, her doctors discovered at her 20-week pregnancy scan that Frankie had spina bifida. This medical condition meant that Frankie’s spinal cord hadn’t fully developed; there was a hole in her vertebrae where it didn’t form properly.
There was only one method of treatment the doctors could offer for Frankie. Before Lavis reached her 26th week of pregnancy, the doctors could perform an operation on Frankie while she was still in the womb to repair are much of her unformed spine as possible.
It would be the first time this surgery was performed in the UK.
Lavis and her husband agreed to have Frankie undergo this operation. “There is a lot of risk,” the Lavis parents agreed, “but we firmly believed that the best thing was to give [Frankie] the best start and that is what [this surgery] is.”
After the doctors performed the surgery, they warned the Lavis parents that there was no guarantee of Frankie’s progress. They considered it highly unlikely that Frankie would ever stand on her own two feet; their goal was to simply have her be able to sit upright on her own.
Now, two years later, Frankie has just taken her first steps, with a walker, on her own.
This wasn’t a result anyone – not the doctors, nor Frankie’s parents – expected from the surgery.
“The change is really quite remarkable knowing the diagnosis when [the doctors] first made it for Frankie,” said Dr. Welch, one of Frankie’s surgeons. “The outcome we predicted was she would never be independently mobile and would be in a wheelchair.
“And to see her as she is now, walking and doing what any other child would do, is astonishing.”
We’re incredibly excited for the Lavis family and hopes that Frankie continues to show this much progress as she continues to grow older.
You can watch her walk here:
