INDIANAPOLIS — On Nov. 8, there was a heartwarming reunion at Riley Hospital for Children as an Indiana University School of Medicine student reunited with the doctors and team that saved her life over the summer.
In July, 24-year-old Katherine Modrall collapsed after doing rounds with her attending physician on the pediatric endocrinology floor.
"I remember sitting in the room on the eighth floor and then waking up in the ICU bed,” Modrall said.
The Riley team acted fast and took emergency measures before putting Modrall on a LifeLine helicopter to IU Methodist Hospital. That's where doctors removed a cystic tumor from her brain.
“It was pretty shocking,” Modrall said.
She said she started feeling symptoms months before, including severe headaches, vomiting, fatigue and vision changes.
At the time, Modrall chalked it up to stress from medical school — never once thinking it was a tumor.
"How did I go from having mild headaches every day to being in an ICU bed with a drain in my head?" Modrall said.
It’s a mystery Dr. Kenneth Moore helped explain. He was the surgeon who removed the cystic tumor from Modrall’s brain.
“We could tell she had a large cystic tumor in her cerebellum, which is the balance center of the brain,” Moore said. “That is what was causing the problem. It was quite large. Almost essentially double the size of her cerebellum on that side.”
He applauds the teams at Riley and Methodist hospitals for moving quickly and getting her into surgery that same day.
“It was one of the more seamless processes I have been a part of, honestly. I was really happy with how it went,” Moore said.
He was also impressed with how fast Modrall recovered — leaving the hospital in just three weeks.
“She had essentially been punched in the back of the head by Mike Tyson or somebody, and she just got up for another punch as soon as we got her awake in the ICU,” Moore said. “She was asking me medical questions the first day after surgery.”
Modrall said the experience is also giving her a new perspective as a future doctor.
"I feel like it's given me a lens into what it's like to be a patient that no one can ever teach physicians or any other health care providers,” Modrall said. “My nurses and doctors were some of the most amazing people I ever met and have changed my life forever."
During her recovery, Modrall only took five weeks off of school. She is back to doing rotations with IU Health and is looking forward to her rotation in neurology in the coming months.
She also plans to run a half-marathon in the spring.