Brain surgery: A close call

A picture saved Colby Thompson from brain surgery.

Thompson had his first seizure three years ago. "I just pretty much blacked out," said Thompson, now 16 and still an avid New England Patriots fan, although his family moved to Austin, Texas, from Lexington a few years ago. "It was more my mom that was freaking out."

An emergency room doctor said his MRI showed a pea-sized growth in his brain and recommended surgery to remove it. The next day, a neurologist said the ER doctor was wrong, that there was no growth.

Colby's mother, Leesa Thompson, was already terrified after finding her son unconscious on the family-room floor, his eyes rolled back, making guttural noises. Now, with conflicting interpretations of Colby's MRI, she was confused, as well.

The Thompsons consulted a friend from their old church in Lexington, Dr. A. Gregory Sorensen, a radiologist at Harvard Medical School. Sorensen offered to scan the boy's brain in his ultra-high-resolution MRI machine, which is mostly used for research.

Sorensen's machine revealed a deformation in Colby's right temporal lobe, a slight gray area in the image.

"Our neurologist was just totally amazed at the clarity," Leesa Thompson said. "Awe-struck."

The image answered the confusion: Colby's problem could be treated with medication. Now a high school junior, Colby got his first car two weeks ago, a black Ford pickup.

JESSICA T. LEE