My name is Adam. How old are you?
Ten years old.
Do you go to school?
Yeah. Do you go to school?
Yes. In 2008, Adam Ali began experiencing pain
in his knees.
After countless misdiagnosis an MRI revealed a rare spinal cord tumor that was
compressing nerves to his legs.
I mean, hearing the word tumor itself it's [inaudible] in anyone's, you know,
as mine for the [inaudible] effect.
Adam and his father travelled to Singapore for a second opinion when Adam began
experiencing shortness of breath.
The doctors there advised he undergo immediate surgery due to the tumor growing
and compressing nerves to his lungs.
By age nine Adam had undergone two surgeries and a round of chemotherapy,
all of which only reduced the tumor by 10 percent.
At that point I think the family lost hope and just said, okay, we're gonna have to
live with this.
Eventually, this tumor is gonna grow or may become malignant.
But they just had access to the internet, reached out.
He replied to my email within 24 hours.
Because when I was -- what do you call --emailing to other doctors, there was
a delay in time, right, some didn't reply. But Doctor Jallo replied to me within 24 hours.
I remember that I was my first email. I looked at the films, I discussed it with
our team here, as well as I discussed it with his doctors in Malaysia, and I said,
you know, I still suspect it's a low grade tumor and I think given the technology
that we have here we'll be able to remove a large portion of it and, theoretically,
be able to treat this tumor completely.
And then I asked him, how much you could remove? Naturally, that will be my first
question, you know, how much you could remove. And he confidently said I can remove more
than 90 percent of the tumor. Then I go again, ask him, what about the
risk of paralysis? He said 90 percent removal with minimal
risk of paralysis. When families ask me about what the
condition is, what the prognosis is, what's gonna happen, I can confidently
tell them what I think is gonna. In the usual scenario this is what's
gonna happen, this will happen at surgery, this will happen immediately after
surgery, this will happen, you know, when we get MRI, this is what we should see,
and then his recovery or their recovery will be this, this, and that.
That's it, I got it. That time I found this is the doctor.
We assign a case, usually, about 72 hours before the patient comes in and what we do
as a care coordinator we will immediately initiate contact with the patient whether
it's by email or by phone to let them know that we'll gonna be taking them to the
appointments to see the doctors.
Besides the expertise they have I think I would say they have a very good management
as well. They have very good management.
They coordinate so well to reduce the stress that the patients go through when
they seek treatment. You know, obviously, when you're in
a state of -- what do you call -- anxiety to get treatment in the state of sadness,
to go through all these, you know, we need the support from the hospital, from the
managerial aspect of it and besides the treatment aspect of it, and I got
everything over here and I was so happy that I was getting the best.
This is a job that's so exciting and so many amazing benefits, emotionally,
psychologically, and also when we're able to help somebody during medical crisis
and help them successfully. It just is very rewarding.
A few days after surgery the Ali family meets with Doctor Jallo for Adam's post op
appointment hoping for good news.
Just like everything we said on the email, right? Yeah, everything worked out as we have
planned, you know, in the schedule, the post op stage.
George Jallo: Yeah, I know. And he got wonders now.
He spells it [inaudible].
You know what he said? He asked me to tell you he wants to be a doctor.
Oh, good. [Inaudible] he wants to be a doctor
just like you, neurosurgeon. [Inaudible] you can take over.
I'll be ready to retire then.
And that's, you know, to me at the end of the day when I go home, speak to my wife,
my family, it's not the operation I did, it's how I impacted a child that I feel
more important in what I do in this world.