A baby girl is finally set to have a huge tumour on her neck removed after it grew to the size of a tennis-ball in just nine months. Alishba Arsalan, from Korangi, Karachi, Pakistan, was born with Cervical Myelocele – a birth defect that causes an incomplete closing of the backbone and membranes around the spinal cord. Her parents, Muhammad Arsalan, 22, and Shanila Arsalan, 20, first noticed Alishba’s neck was swelling after birth but doctors struggled to diagnose her illness.
Alishba, who is now nine months old, is set to have the mass removed next week. Shanila said: ‘I noticed When she was born that she had swelling on her neck but doctors were left baffled. But within weeks a round mass started growing on her neck which has now resembles a tennis ball.’
Alishba’s parents have taken her to several doctors since her birth in a desperate bid for answers. Luckily, the parents recently took Alishba to Jinnah Post Graduate Medical Centre in Karachi, where doctors have diagnosed her with Cervical Myelocele and have assured the parents that they would operate her free of cost.