William underwent surgery on a Wednesday morning. Hilary and I spent many hours pacing around central London while the operation went on. It was a useful lesson for me, when I became a fully trained surgeon myself, to know how much my patients’ families suffer when I am operating. The operation was a success and William survived, since the tumour proved to be a benign choroid plexus papilloma even though the pathology report had reported it to be malignant. I came to realize later that few brain tumours at that age are benign, and that even with the benign tumours the risks of surgery in such
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