Is there anything more beautiful than the laughter of a child? The parents of nine-year-old Justin Cho from California enjoyed their son’s laughter quite often. Sometimes, for no reason at all, Justin would laugh uncontrollably. His parents thought it was just part of his personality, but they were wrong.
Like most boys his age, Justin loved to play soccer and board games. He was always happy. But his parents began to suspect that something wasn’t quite right when they noticed that Justin laughed even more when he was very tired. And then one day Justin suddenly had an epileptic seizure. It was then that a team of experts made a surprising diagnosis.
The fits of laughter that Justin had so often were, in fact, epileptic seizures. This rare disease is called gelastic epilepsy. In addition, an MRI revealed that Justin had a benign tumor in his brain. These types of tumors are usually there from birth, but often don’t cause problems until much later in life, if at all.
A few years ago, Justin would have had to have his head opened to remove the tumor. These types of operations are not only very risky, they also require a lot of recovery time. Fortunately, thanks to advances in medical science, doctors were able to use microscopic tools that destroyed the tumor with heat.
And this futuristic operation was a complete success! Now, six months later, Justin doesn’t have epileptic seizures anymore. And the best news is that he’s still as cheerful as before!
Justin and his family are obviously very relieved and now the happy youngster is looking forward to a full life. Keep on laughing, Justin!
You can find out more about Justin’s story in this video…
