Clonmel man Evan Hickey enjoys new lease of life following successful brain surgery in Belgium

A young Clonmel man is celebrating his new lease of life following life-saving surgery in Belgium earlier this month.

25 year-old Evan Hickey from Roaring Springs, Old Bridge, underwent three hours of keyhole surgery at the Saint Pierre University Hospital in Brussels on June 1 to remove a cyst from his brain that was also pressing on his optic nerve.

The operation was a success and he is expected to make a full recovery within a year, to the understandable relief of Evan himself, his parents Honra and Joe, brother Andy, family and friends. 

"I feel like I have my life back again, which is very nice. It feels really good to have come through it", he says.    

Above - Clonmel man Evan Hickey with Dr. Hrayr Shahinian, who performed the successful brain surgery in Brussels.

The urgency and necessity for the operation was underlined by Dr. Hrayr Shahinian, the renowned brain surgeon who travelled from the Skull Base Institute in Los Angeles to perform the operation.

As well as having developed hydrocephalus on the brain, the cyst had grown, and Evan was told he could have died within six months to a year if it hadn't been operated upon.

A week before the operation he had a seizure when he was having blood tests taken at St. James Hospital in Dublin, which was another indication that the tumour was growing.

"I knew it was going to damage me, I could feel it. I was not going to leave it in my head", he says.

Above - Evan Hickey (centre) with his brother Andy (right) and friend Philly McCarthy

However, what he describes as "the dark days" since he became ill almost two years ago are now firmly behind him and Evan is looking forward to the future.

Evan and his family are also grateful for the remarkable response to the fundraising appeal for the surgery, and which raised €170,000 in the space of just a couple of months 

(Read more in tomorrow's print edition of The Nationalist).