A BARNSLEY teenager had two parts of his brain removed to stop the chronic epileptic fits which began blighting his life as he battled cancer.
Sean Goldthorpe, 15, was only five when he was diagnosed with leukaemia but as three years of gruelling treatment were coming to an end he had a brain haemorrhage, which triggered severe epilepsy.
For the next six years Sean suffered up to 30 fits during each epileptic attack and after attempts to find a cure through medication failed, he bravely opted to undergo drastic brain surgery at Great Ormond Street Hospital.
Two pieces of scarred tissue (around seven per cent of his brain), which had been damaged during the fits and haemorrhage, were taken away in a seven hour operation.
One was near to the section of the brain which regulates memory and the other was close to the part which controls speech.
Sean's parents, Jane and Paul, of Longdale Croft, Monk Bretton, felt he was old enough to make up his own mind about the surgery and he told them “let's just get on with it.”
