A Girl Named Maranda Summary and Analysis

Four-year-old Maranda Francisco had been taken to a myriad of doctors and specialists during her short life. At 18 months old she began having seizures progressing from infrequently to hundreds per day. She received many misdiagnoses and not much hope that anything could be done to help her. Finally a doctor in Denver correctly diagnosed her condition as Rasmussen's encephalitis, a rare inflammation of the brain tissue. Without correction, Maranda was destined to die soon. The case is referred to Johns Hopkins due to its leadership in the area of seizure treatment.

Ben is asked by to consider performing the extremely risky surgery to correct Maranda's decision. Ben has never done this operation called a hemispherectomy but after much thought and research agrees to take it on. Ben meets with the desperate parents who agree to...