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Surgery, Enabling Elvis to Walk Again, is a Success
His spirits only momentary dampened by
During the procudure, doctors cleaned the wound and removed a pin placed there by physicians in Bosnia. They also repaired his left foot, mosshapen from 15 months of atrophy. His doctors, providing the treatment at no charge, will monitor Elvis' progress to see whether bone graft surgery will be needed.
Elvis, an energetic boy who loves to play soccer, has been sidelined since the explosion of a rifle grenade, left behind by warring fanctions, was found by him and a group of playmates in April, 1995. When the grenade exploded, it took the life of Elvis' 12-year-old brother Edis.
But Lee, who videotaped the operation for "A Wound To The Soul," her documentary on child victims of the war in Bosnia, reports that Elvis is back in high spirits and, despite a toothache, was taking English lessons at the hospital. "He was shooting pool in the hospital rec room in his wheelchair on Saturday," said Lee. "This is one trly amazing child," she said.
Doctors hoped that Elvis would take his first tentative steps on Saturday, part of an aggressive protocol that puts patients undergoing such surgery back on their feet within days and promotes blood flow to his legs. Weiss Hospital, a division of Geisinger Medical Facility in Danville, sprang into action with television station WNEP-TV to provide medical care for the boy after Peter Mikuliak, a relief worker in Croatia, read about Elvis in Berserkistan this Spring. The story of how the Lee, the Internet community, WNEP and Geisinger ralled to help Elvis was broadcast today on ABC-TV's World News Sunday. |
Danville, Pennsylvania, July 7 (Berserkistan) -- Elvis Muhic, the Bosnian boy whose chances of never again walking were changed when the Internet came to his rescue, has undergone a first round of surgery at Janet Weis Children's Hospital in Danville, Pennsylvania. The hour-long surgical procedure performed by doctors there on Friday is being called a complete success and Elvis may return to Bosnia in as little as two months time.
Cynthia Lee, the filmmaker who began the campaign to save Elvis' leg, told Berserkistan on Sunday that Elvis' stoic attitute toward the pain he has been suffering since the explosion that shatered his right leg dimmed momentarily before the operation.
Berserkistan, July 2 Doctors Say they can Save Elvis' Leg
Berserkistan Can This Boy's Leg Be Saved? by Cynthia Lee
Berserkistan Encounter with Fear A War Story by Cynthia Lee
Operation Elvis Janet Weis Children's Hospital at Geisinger
WNEP-TV 16 ABC TV for Northeast and Central Pennsylvania
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