Gratitude Stories - Eleanor
Care of ‘Angels’ Saves Eleanor’s Life
One morning in 2019, Eleanor Langham tripped and fell in her apartment, hitting her head on a coffee table. Unbeknownst to her at the time, that painful accident would be the beginning of a long, trying journey. About a month after her fall, Eleanor started getting headaches, tinnitus, and a numbness in her face. For the next year, she consulted with various doctors about her concerns. But nothing helped. Until, that is, she came to Lifespan.
A work colleague familiar with her woes suggested Eleanor go to the emergency room at Newport Hospital. There, diagnostic imaging revealed a lemon-sized mass in the middle of her brain. She had a large central neurocytoma, which staff would later inform Eleanor may have been growing for 15 years.
That same day, Eleanor, then just 30 years old, was transferred to the Neuro Critical Care Unit at Rhode Island Hospital and prepared to undergo a craniotomy. The complicated surgery, which involved temporarily removing part of Eleanor’s skull and extracting the tumor, was successfully performed a week later. “The team at Rhode Island Hospital saved my memory, my cognitive functions, and most importantly, my life,” Eleanor explains. After transferring back to Newport Hospital’s Vanderbilt Rehabilitation Center for a 10-day stay, Eleanor was discharged. Her road to recovery now complete, Eleanor receives annual scans to ensure the tumor has not returned and is eternally grateful for the care she received. “Every person in my Lifespan journey was an absolute angel,” she concludes.