A woman relieved after a "brain tumor" turns out to be a parasite

Upper East Side, Manhattan – "The good news is that I do not have cancer."

This news is also surprising, because the doctors at Mount Sinai Hospital thought exactly the opposite: until last September, when neurosurgeons opened the skull of Rachel Palma.

They expected to find a malignant tumor in the brain. Instead, they found a parasite.

"We were delighted," said Dr. Jonathan Rasouli. "We were, like, applauding and applauding.We were so happy … When we went in there and saw that it was a lone worm, we were like, 'YES! & # 39; We were so happy! "

It's in January of last year that strange things began to happen for the 42-year-old Middletown man.

She would suddenly fall off her cup of coffee. She could not remember the words. She tried to call dead parents.

After countless doctor visits and numerous brain scans, Mount Sinai specialists uncovered the problem and developed a plan of attack: a three-hour surgery.

They showed us images of the brain scan and described what they saw: "It's the lesion, and you can see how it improves – it's bright white. Inside, it's dark. "

The big mystery of this story is how the parasite got there. The patient has never traveled outside the United States. She does not remember eating uncooked meat. And frankly, she gave up trying to find an answer.

"I stopped asking questions and I started celebrating and making the most of life," she said, "because in an instant, she can be removed."

Doctors say that they had known that it was a solitary worm and not a tumor causing all the problems, perhaps a high dose of antibiotics would have served as a cure.

But that does not upset Rachel Palma.

"There is no doubt in my mind that they saved my life," she said. "And they made me my life."

A life, that is to say temporarily diverted by a parasite.