Yamini Karanam got quite the shock when she underwent surgery for a brain tumor and discovered the brain tumor was actually an embryonic twin lodged in her brain.

Yamini Karanam Discovers Embryonic Twin During Brain Surgery

Karanam, a PhD student, first noticed something was wrong in September of 2014, when she realized she had trouble distinguishing voices when multiple people were talking and had trouble processing certain information. “Problems with reading comprehension, listening comprehension. If a couple people were talking in a room, I wouldn’t understand what was happening,” Karanam revealed.

After seeing doctors in Indiana, Karanam was driven to seek out medical treatment in Los Angeles, where she underwent keyhole surgery at the Los Angeles Skull Base Institute. During the surgery, Dr. Hrayr Shanhinian made the shocking discovery that Karanam wasn’t suffering from a tumor at all, but had a teratoma, also called an embryonic twin, in her brain. The teratoma reportedly had bone, hair and teeth.

Shanhinian said that this is only the second teratoma he has ever encountered, out of what he estimates as “7,000 or 8,000” brain tumor surgeries. And Karanam is on track for a complete recovery in less than a month.

Though Karanam joked that what she thought was a tumor was really an “evil twin sister who’s been torturing me for the past 26 years,” she also said she was frustrated that none of the doctors she originally visited suggested the keyhole surgery in the first place. A keyhole surgery is a relatively new procedure that is much less invasive than a traditional or mainstream brain surgery, and it is that procedure that led Karanam to Los Angeles in the first place.

“It’s really unfair that people don’t know about it. This has to be mainstream. This is the first thing they should get you. When they know you have a pineal tumor, they should tell you, ‘You know what? There’s a minimally invasive approach in which they won’t kill you, they won’t leave you with a disability. There’s a way in which you can live your life just the way you want to,’” Karanam told NBC News.

Article by Olivia Truffaut-Wong

Olivia Truffaut-Wong was born and raised in Berkeley, California, where she developed her love of all things entertainment. After moving to New York City to earn her degree in Film Studies, she stayed on the East Coast to follow her passion and become an entertainment writer. She lives on a diet of television, movies and food.