The 13-year-old has been living with her neck stuck at a painful 90º angle for almost her entire life, but a fundraising campaign allowed her to have a £26,000 miracle operation
Afsheen has never been able to attend school or play with friends and spends all her time at home (Image: afsheengul786/Instagram)
A teenager from Pakistan whose neck has been twisted a painful ninety-degree angle since she was eight months old can finally hold her head up thanks to radical life-changing surgery.
Afsheen Gul fell over while she was playing outside almost 13 years ago and since then she has been in constant pain.
But thanks to a fundraising campaign on GoFundMe, Afsheen’s parents were able to pay for a £26,000 miracle operation at the Apollo Hospital, in New Delhi.
Afsheen, who has cerebral palsy, was born healthy but an accidental slip when she was still toddler led to the bizarre injury.
After the surgery, Afsheen wrote on Instagram: ‘Thank you Dr. Rajagopalan Krishnan for giving me a new life’ (Image: afsheengul786/Instagram)
He parents assumed it would get better of its own accord but the condition persisted and, lacking the money for proper medical care, tried a faith healer to no avail.
A newspaper story about her condition brought wider attention to Afsheen’s plight and that led to a GoFundMe page being set up to raise the money for her surgery.
Afsheen, who is one of six, was born healthy but things took a dramatic turn when she was just eight-months-old and fell whilst playing outside.
Afsheen’s parents initially thought nothing of her bent neck, until it gradually got worse.
Due to their limited funds, they eventually took her to a local faith healer, but it did nothing to help.
Her story gained world-wide attention back in 2016 after an article on a news website attracted good wishes and a GoFundMe page was set up top help her family afford surgery.
The youngster was taken to Agha Khan University Hospital, in Karachi, Pakistan, in February 2018, where specialists said they would operate on her – but gave her a ’50 per cent chance of survival’.
‘They told us there is 50 per cent chance for the successful surgery and asked us to go home and think over it,’ Afsheen’s eldest brother Mohmad Yaqoob said. But nothing ever happened.
However, Dr Rajagopalan Krishnan, who worked for the NHS for 15 years before returning to India to work on extreme medical cases, has successfully dealt with many complex spinal surgeries during his career and he was ready to help Afsheen.
He said: ‘Her brother Yaqoob got in touch with me after seeing a documentary I had done where I had successfully operated on a boy with a similar condition. I was certain I could improve her quality of life but I had to see her first. If we left it any longer the chances of her recovering from any surgery were slim.’