Yamini Karanam, a PhD student at Indiana University’s School of Informatics, suddenly started facing trouble in understanding simple articles.

Karanam who is from Hyderabad, India, was once a brilliant student in the university, but when she went for a holiday she returned even more exhausted. Karanam slept for two weeks and even missed her school.

After consulting doctor it became clear that Karanam had a cyst in pineal gland, a small oval shaped stricture located deep inside in the center of the rain.

She kept on visiting more and more doctors to find out what could be done, but neurosurgeons hesitated to operate because they said the location of the tumor posed a lot of risks for surgery.

“The fear didn’t sink in yet (…) [My] will was undeterred because it was hardly put to test. [My] energy levels were sinking and fatigue started crippling [my] days. (…) Months and weeks slipped through [my] fingers”, she wrote in her diary.

She further wrote that there were not any diagnostic procedures left to be treated on her. Consultations followed procedures but nobody said anything useful, she added.

Desperate to save Karanam's life, her friends set up a fundraising account online and gathered $32,437 for her surgery.

Then after sometime Karanam finally found Dr. Hrayr Shahinian, who performs radical ‘keyhole’ brain surgeries at the Skull base Institute in Los Angeles.

Dr. Shahinian made a tiny incision in the back of Karanam's head, and then strung an endoscope into her skull and through a natural channel in her brain to the site of the tumor.

After having a closer look at the tumor doctor found that Karanam’s tumor was not just a tumor it was a teratoma. Teratoma is a clump of bone, hair and teeth.

Some scientists think that teratomas are basically twins that never quite develop and are instead absorbed into the surviving baby's body.

Shahinian successfully removed the tumor, which was not cancerous. He now expects Karanam to make a full recovery.