CHENNAI: Before his family reached Chennai in March, Mauritian national Ally Aullybocus did not know if his 13-year-old son Muhammad Ali would ever walk again. “All he had was a slight pain in his right thigh. Only after two months when we took him to a hospital in Mauritius did we know that there was a rare tumour,” he says, remembering the events that unfolded earlier this year. It turned out to be Ewing’s Sarcoma, a disease which causes cancerous cells to develop in the body’s largest limb — the femur. “They said his only chance of survival would be to have his leg amputated. We were shocked,” he adds. And then, while scouring the net, they came across the services offered by Apollo Speciality Hospitals in the field of orthopedic oncology.Once they set foot in Chennai, the case was referred to Dr Mayilvahanan Natarajan, the Vice-Chancellor of the TN Dr MGR Medical University who is a celebrated orthopedic surgeon. “We started him off on chemotherapy and once we saw the extent to which the cancer had grown in the limb, we decided that a replacement had to be done,” he said. Though partial replacements had been done several times before, a total femur replacement involving both hip and knee joints had been unheard of in the country. “We procured customised prosthetics and had the boy’s femur replaced,” says Natarajan. "This was his only hope of ever walking again and that is why we attempted it.” After a six-hour surgery last month, Muhammed has recovered pretty well. As he sat there in his wheelchair, he said he was happy that he would be able to walk in three months after rehabilitation. “We will be continuing the chemotherapy to ensure the cancer is completely destroyed,” says Natarajan. This means the family will have to remain in Chennai for a year but they are happy about it, “People here are friendly,” smiles his father. Not even the worry of having to modify the length of his leg when his son’s body grows or the possibility of having to replace the prosthetics can worry him now.
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