Boy undergoes rare spinal tumor surgery

NEW YORK - Surgeons freed a 6-year-old boy from the twisting grip of a tumor Wednesday, cutting through the growth to relax his spinal cord and give him a chance at a relatively normal boyhood. In the first half of an operation that will resume next week, doctors at Montefiore Medical Center cut into Aidan Fraser's neck to attack the tumor that had grotesquely twisted his spinal column.

"It went very, very well," said Dr. John Houton, a neurosurgeon. "I am absolutely thrilled with the result that we got." He said Aidan woke up easily, was breathing on his own, showed no ill effects and was with his mother, Suzanne Fraser.

Aidan is her only child; his father, Rich Fraser, died in the World Trade Center attacks of 2001. Mother and son were "very, very nervous" when they went into the operating room at 7:45 a.m., hospital spokesman Steve Osborne said.

Because the spinal column had curved around the tumor, the delicate spinal cord inside the column had stretched beyond normal limits and was getting bruised too easily, resulting in occasional paralysis. Surgeons relaxed the cord by removing some vertebrae, then used a bone graft from one of Aidan's ribs to stabilize the spine where the tumor had undermined its structure.

Because Wednesday's surgery at Montefiore's Children's Hospital took nearly eight hours, the doctors decided to wait until next week to do the second part, which involves further stabilizing the spine from the back. The lead surgeon, Dr. Rick Abbott, said there was seven to 10 hours of work left.

Abbott said the doctors had so far avoided the "bear traps" of the surgery - like the blood supply to the brain, which was growing through the tumor and had to be protected while they cut into the tumor to approach and make more room for the spine.

Abbott said the non-cancerous tumor, caused by neurofibromatosis, or NF, completely encircled Aidan's spine and neck and had gone into his chest and toward his left arm.

"I've worked with a lot of NF," the surgeon said, "and I've not seen a spinal problem this severe."

Aidan's mother said her son was a bit frightened by the prospect of surgery but she expects him to return to the "very sweet, way too smart" kid he's always been.

Dr. Adam Levy, the pediatric oncologist who brought the Frasers to Montefiore, said Aidan was "dealt a pretty unfair lot. This tumor and what happened to his dad." Coincidentally, Levy was a high school classmate of Rich Fraser.

Aidan had his first operation when he was 15 months old, after waking up one day unable to walk; the tumor had begun pressing on his spine. In the years since, various treatments managed to keep the tumor manageable.

But then, a few weeks ago, as Aidan tried on some glow-in-the-dark Halloween pajamas, he fell "and I guess he landed funny," his mother said. He was in severe pain and couldn't move his arms.

Abbott put Aidan into traction to lessen the stretch on the spinal cord, and the symptoms improved. But to keep his head steady, doctors had to install a "halo" stabilizer, attached by six pins screwed into Aidan's skull.

"Usually, the spinal cord is relaxed, surrounded by fluid, and if there's a bit of movement, some jostling, so what," Abbott said. But Aidan's spinal cord couldn't handle any more motion, and the fall starkly showed that surgery was necessary.

Levy said that if the surgery is successful, Aidan should eventually be able to return to school.

"His spine will be stable, so he will be safer," he said. "My hope is that he will be able to go back to being a kid."

Richard K. Fraser
Two Entwined Families Grieve Together
October 2, 2001

Richard Fraser and Allison Horstmann met as teenagers in 1985, when they became summer next-door neighbors in Cutchogue. Their families have been close ever since.

Even as adults, Richard and Allison still saw each other at gatherings in Cutchogue and ran races together on Long Island. And both eventually moved to Manhattan and went to work in the same tower at the World Trade Center.

Now their families are grieving together.

Richard Fraser, 32, was a supervisor for an insurance firm, Aon Corp., with an office on the 92nd floor of Tower Two. Allison Horstmann Jones, 31, worked for the financial brokerage firm of Sandler O'Neill and Partners on the 104th floor.

Richard and his wife, Suzanne, moved from Connecticut to Manhattan in the spring so the family would be closer to their son Aidan's doctor. Aidan has a rare nerve disease, neurofibromatosis.

When the terrorists struck, Suzanne recalled, "I got a phone call from my husband saying that he was fine. I was like, 'What are you talking about?' He said a plane had hit the tower next door. I said, 'Well you should come home.'"

Richard's mother, Kathryn, beeped him, so he called her. "He talked to us after the first impact in the other building," his father, Charles, said. "He said to us, 'I can see the hole. I've actually seen a couple of people jumping out of windows.'"

"His last comment was, 'I think I should get my people out,'" his mother recalled.

"I said, 'Go Richie. Get going.'"

Richard supervised more than 20 employees. Co-workers said they had last seen him making sure everyone on his floor had gotten out.

"I pretty much knew the first night" after calling area hospitals, his wife said. When she heard reports that people in wheelchairs were stranded at the top of stairwells, "I knew then that he was dead because he would never leave someone like that."

Suzanne gave the eulogy for her husband, a sports lover who had graduated from Jericho High School and Siena College, at a service attended by more than 500, including the Horstmanns, on Sept. 22 at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola in Manhattan. That was where they were married in 1997.

"He always wanted a family," Suzanne said. "He had a really sick kid, and he was probably the best father I'd ever met in my life."

Richard is also survived by his sister, Margaret Aaron of Jericho, and brother, Leland of Allentown, Pa. To pay for treatment for 21-month-old Aidan, the family has established the Aidan Fraser Education and Medical Fund, 7325 Nassau Point Rd., Cutchogue, N.Y. 11935.

Allison Horstmann grew up in Bernardsville, N.J., and graduated from Lehigh University. The marathon runner and triathlete earned her MBA degree at the University of Colorado in 1997. That was also the year she went to work for Sandler O'Neill and married Harry T. Jones IV, a Bernardsville neighbor.

She was a vice president in institutional sales at the firm that specializes in bank stocks. "She was a very determined person, yet she was a loving wife and daughter," said her father, Richard Horstmann of Bernardsville.

The morning of the attacks, he said, "I was driving to work and heard it on the radio, and I immediately called Allison." His daughter also talked to her mother and husband and said she was fine. "We all talked to her that morning on a very upbeat basis." And that has provided comfort.

In addition to her father, Allison is survived by her mother, Beverly Horstmann of Mendham, N.J.; sisters Katherine Colella of Basking Ridge, N.J., Jennifer Horstmann of Boston, and Kimberly Horstmann of Mendham, and brother Frederick, who's at Whittier College in California. There will be a service for Allison on Saturday at the Church of St. John on the Mountain in Bernardsville. The Frasers will be there.

--Bill Bleyer (Newsday)

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