Home » Brain surgeons just saved Joel's life. Here's why innovation matters

Brain surgeons just saved Joel's life. Here's why innovation matters

written by Top Stories Source
Joel Kimber is recovering in hospital from a complex nine-hour operation that saved his life. Last week, the 35-year-old had a golf-ball sized tumour removed from the base of his skull.
"I've actually lost all hearing in my right ear now as a result of the tumour," Joel told SBS prior to surgery.
"The benign tumour on my facial nerve has affected the muscle control on the right side of my face.

"And my right eye gets really tired because I can't close it properly."

Joel Kimber in a black t-shirt sitting at the Chris O'Brien Lifehouse.

Joel Kimber is being treated at the Chris O'Brien Lifehouse, a not-for-profit integrated cancer treatment centre in Sydney's Camperdown. Source: SBS News / Sandra Fulloon

Joel is among 1,600 people diagnosed with brain cancer in Australia each year. He recalls that the diagnosis in 2022 came as a shock.

 

"I remember getting an email and it said from 'brain surgeon' and it's just such a wild thing to receive," he says.
"And it was a really, really difficult time. I didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't know if I had only have three months to live? Or what the rest of my life would look like?"
The growth on his facial nerve is a rare type of tumour, known as a 'schwannoma', which forms in the nervous system.

Joel is being treated by specialists at the Chris O'Brien Lifehouse, a not-for-profit integrated cancer treatment centre in Sydney's Camperdown.

Dr Brindha Shivalingham sitting in her office in front of a brain sacn.

Dr Shivalingham grew up in Sydney's north, and later studied medicine in Australia and the UK. Six years ago, she stepped into the director of neurosurgery role at the Chris O'Brien Lifehouse. Source: SBS News / Sandra Fulloon

Director of neurosurgery Dr Brindha Shivalingham says perhaps only 20 people in Australia are diagnosed with this particular condition each year.
"Facial neuromas or schwannomas [on the facial nerve] are actually quite rare," she explains.
"And even though it is a benign tumour, it would keep growing and putting more pressure [on Joel's brain] which could eventually be life-threatening."
Saving lives at the Chris O’Brien Lifehouse is an enormous source of pride for Shivalingham, who arrived in Australia in 1984 after fleeing Sri Lanka as a child with her family.
Sri Lanka's civil war officially began after a day of riots targeting Tamils in the nation's capital Colombo in July 1983. It lasted until 2009.
"In 1983, during the civil war in Colombo, our entire neighbourhood was wiped out within a few hours," Shivalingham says.
"Most Tamils lived in this particular neighbourhood, and that's why we were targeted.
"All of our houses burned down so we had to flee and ended up in a refugee camp.

"It was a harrowing experience — still stirs up a lot of emotion for me."

Dr Brindha Shivalingham aged 10 in traditional dance costume in Sri Lanka.

Dr Brindha Shivalingham, pictured here at the age of 10, left Sri Lanka when she was still a child. Source: Supplied / Dr Brindha Shivalingham.

Shivalingham grew up in Sydney's north, and later studied medicine in Australia and the UK. Six years ago, she stepped into the director of neurosurgery role at the Chris O'Brien Lifehouse.
"One of the things that I really wanted to achieve when I came on board was to establish a centre of excellence for brain cancer where patients felt completely looked after. And that is actually my proudest achievement," she says.
Over the past decade, it has treated more than half a million patients, fulfilling Dr Chris O'Brien's vision for a patient-centred cancer facility.

However, its opening on 15 November 2013 was tinged with sadness.

Dr Chris O'Brien in an operating theatre in green hospital scrubs.

Dr Chris O'Brien. Source: Supplied / Chris O'Brien Lifehouse

"Chris O'Brien was a head and neck cancer surgeon. And I was the first person to have to tell him that he had brain cancer," Shivalingham says.
"It was a very, very tough part of my job and incredibly difficult to break that news to him.
"Dr O'Brien was a cancer specialist himself and he knew exactly what this meant for him. But he certainly fought it hard. He fought it very hard.”

O'Brien died in 2009 but his vision lives on. Each year the centre treats more than 60,000 cancer patients.

"The Chris O'Brien Lifehouse has made a major contribution not just to patient care but also to cancer research both at national and international level," Professor Jeremy Crook, chair of biomedical innovation at Sydney University, says.
"Its research facility is helping to improve conventional cancer treatment including radiation and chemotherapy, while also working on tissue reconstruction after surgical removal of tumours, for example, bone reconstruction."
Removing Joel's tumour was a success and Shivalingham says innovative techniques were used to restore facial function post-surgery.

"We had to go through the skull at the base of the brain in order to get to the tumour. And in that location, there are many important nerves and also blood vessels that need to be looked after and preserved," she says.

A man reclines at a 45 degree angle in a hospital bed. A woman in a floral dress stands above him.

Dr Brindha Shivalingham says innovative techniques were used to restore Joel Kimber's facial function post-surgery. Source: SBS News

"During the operation, we also needed to sacrifice his facial nerve. But one of the things that we do is re-animation surgery, where we join facial nerves to other nerves in order to reactivate the muscles of his face so that he can keep using them or has movement in them."

 

Despite recent advances, Shivalingham says 50,000 people still die from cancer in Australia each year and more financial support is needed.

"We are still losing too many people to brain cancer, and this is something that I really want to change in the next 10 years," she says.

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