When Hannah Fortman was two years old, she was active, beginning to talk, and adventurous. In May of 2023, her parents noticed her becoming more timid, holding her parents’ hands more often and walking less. At first, they thought she was just wanting more attention, but when Hannah began struggling with her balance, they knew something was wrong.
Diagnosis and operation
Hannah’s parents, Megan and Pat, scheduled an appointment with Hannah’s pediatrician, who didn’t recognize anything glaringly off with Hannah until the end of the appointment when Hannah walked out of the room holding the wall for support.
Hannah’s pediatrician recommended they run some tests to rule out illnesses like Lyme disease and mononucleosis, more commonly known as mono. When tests came back negative, they were referred to a Children’s Minnesota neurologist who ordered an MRI. When Hannah continued to regress, going from walking to crawling, the MRI was moved up to a few days later at the Children’s Minnesota Diagnostic Imaging Center in Minnetonka.
“At that point, we thought it was a brain tumor. We couldn’t think of what else caused that,” Megan said. “That was just an awful week for everyone.”
Hannah and her family were still in the clinic after the MRI when the neurologist called and confirmed Hannah had a brain tumor and it was obstructing the flow of fluid in her brain and causing a significant increase in pressure. Megan and Pat were told to rush to the Children’s Minnesota emergency department in Minneapolis.
After monitoring her overnight, Hannah’s care team placed a drain to allow the fluid in her brain to flow again. They performed more imaging and determined the tumor was non-cancerous and between the size of a lime and a peach.
Just a few days later, Dr. Meysam Kebriaei, Children’s Minnesota medical director of neurosurgery, along with a team of pediatric experts, performed a 6-hour operation and successfully removed the majority of the tumor. However, part of the tumor was attached to her brainstem, and removing it would put Hannah at great risk, so a small section was left intact.
Complications
After surgery, Hannah was stable, but too much cerebrospinal fluid built up in her brain, known as hydrocephalus. To treat it, Dr. Kebriaei put in a shunt, a tube that allows fluid to flow to a different part of the body. Throughout her journey her shunt failed three times, requiring her to get emergency surgery. Hannah has also experienced posterior fossa syndrome, meaning she was without speech for a short period of time, a symptom not abnormal for the location of her tumor.
“That was really scary,” Megan said. “I remember looking at her eyes and it was like she was trying to say something but couldn’t. I had the feeling she was trapped in her body. It was really hard to see.”
Thankfully, Hannah regained her speech a week after surgery, but her recovery was just beginning. She had lost a lot of weight during her stay, run out of accessible arm veins for her IVs, and had to relearn how to walk.
During her stay, she encountered “nearly every single complication you can think of,” her mom said.
Hannah went to inpatient rehab for a few weeks, had her drain put back in after the third shunt failure, and was put on antibiotics. Thanks to intensive speech therapy, occupational therapy, and physical therapy, Hannah eventually regained her strength. Finally, after four months of being in and out of the hospital, she was able to return home in September 2023.
Supporting roles
Megan and Pat had to split their time between being at the hospital and being at home with Hannah’s older brother. They’re grateful to their families for the overwhelming support they’ve received.
“We were just exhausted,” Pat said. “The grandparents helped tremendously throughout the ordeal. We’re very blessed.”
Children’s Minnesota strives to provide comprehensive care to all patients, and in Hannah’s case, that meant a team of neurosurgeons, neurooncologists, neuroradiologists, pathologists, geneticists, the intensive care team, rehab teams, child life, and social work.
“Everyone at Children’s [Minnesota] was always incredibly supportive,” Pat said. “We had a strong support system. It seems like there’s always somebody there to help.”
Being a kid
Today, Hannah still goes to physical therapy but is beginning to return to a typical childhood. She started preschool in September 2024.
“She’s getting better every single day, very slowly, but very consistently,” Megan said. “When we were in rehab, we had no idea if she was going to be able to do anything more than what she was doing, but she just keeps improving.”
Hannah is still being monitored closely to ensure her tumor does not grow further, but she is slowly returning to her life. She’s had her first day of school, her first haircut, and her first swim lessons already, and has taken them head-on.
“Our story, we’re still kind of in the middle of it,” Megan says. “But even just a year out, we’re in a completely different spot than we were. I just want her to not have so many things to worry about. I want her to be a kid now.”
