'Elephant Boy' is now back in School

Earlier "Ganesh Vaibhav" was called the "Elephant Boy", but no longer now. Ganesh, aged six-years from India was born with the grotesque, life-threatening facial deformity. The boy, named after Ganesha, an Indian god with a trunk-like nose, became news in India after his father wrote to an ETV producer, asking him to profile the boy on TV. Ganesh's father supports his family by fermenting milk to make yogurt.

Reports in Indian newspapers said Ganesh's strange appearance caused him to be shunned. He had few friends and some schools denied him admission.

Now thanks to an operation of more than 10 hours, performed in India by a surgical team led by Sarnia plastic surgeon Sanjeev Kaila, Ganesh has a nose and eyes that look normal. Earlier Doctors told his father Ganesh would lose his eyes and possibly his life if they operated.

"It's a great nose, a cute button nose," said nurse Sheila Groombridge, who accompanied Kaila to southern India for the surgery at the NRI Academy of Sciences at Vijayawada in India.

Gone is the mass of brain tissue, covered only by stretched muscle and skin, that protruded from a hole between Ganesh's eyes, like a short elephant trunk.
The rare congenital skull defect, called a nasofrontal meningocele, put the boy at risk of such potentially fatal brain diseases as meningitis.

"The health risk is gone," said Kaila.

"Ganesh is healthy. He looks normal. He's back with his family and back in school.

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