This is a story that Mary Shelley wishes she could have written, because it makes Frankenstein and his monster look positively normal.

26-year old Yamini Karanam, from India, moved to Indianapolis in the US to further her studies. What should have been a great and exciting adventure quickly turned into a nightmare. Yamini started mixing up what friends had said to her, sleeping more, eating less and getting headaches.

After trips to doctors and specialists, they said it could be a cyst on her pineal gland in her brain.

The fear didn’t sink in yet. [My] will was undeterred because it was hardly put to test. [My] energy levels were sinking and fatigue started crippling [my] days. … Months and weeks slipped through [my] fingers. There weren’t any diagnostic procedures left to run on [me]. Consultations followed procedures but nobody said anything useful. It was like white noise passed from the doctor to the patient to the support system. Now, they called it a tumor and that’s all 21st century medicine could do in three months.

Eventually, her friends set up a fundraising account and a miracle happened. A doctor by the name of Hrayr Shahinian from the Skullbase Institute in Los Angeles said he could perform “radical keyhole” surgery on her and remove the tumor.

Karanam’s tumor wasn’t just a tumor. It was a teratoma: a clump of bone, hair and teeth.

Shahinian successfully removed the “tumor” and instead found a teratoma, something that has had scientists and doctors baffled for decades.

Some have speculated that they are basically twins that never quite develop and are instead absorbed into the surviving baby’s body. In fact, newborns occasionally have large teratomas attached to them like a conjoined twin.

It can’t be said for certain if the teratoma really was her twin, but either way, Karanam is set to make a full recovery.

[Source: The Washington Post]