Brain Surgery Patient Gets Fish Wish

To see 5-year-old Carson Hanley run and laugh and have fun, you would never know the first years of her life were wracked with countless epileptic seizures.

Only another mother knows the helpless, frightened feeling Jennifer Hanley had as she watched her 2-day-old daughter Carson wracked with seizures.

They were so bad Carson eventually had three major brain surgeries. Now, at age five, Carson is seizure free. What?s she's been through qualifies her for a Fish Wish.

Life is tough enough, with gators under every rock, without having any more obstacles thrown in our paths. Yet for Carson Hanley, the gators are the least of it.

Born with what's called left hemisphere cortical dysplasia, Carson eventually had part of her brain removed.

?A large, large portion,? said Children?s Healthcare of Atlanta neurologist Dr. Robert Flamini. ?She actually had what's called a functional hemispherectomy where we pretty much remove almost an entire half."

For a mother powerless to protect her child from countless seizures, the prospect of radical surgery was frightening.

"To hear that is just absolutely devastating,? said Jennifer Hanley, Carson?s mother. ?What will my child be like with part of her brain removed?"

What will her child be like? Carson Hanley is handling her life.

"She just has that certain something that's just electric,? Jennifer Hanley said. "People are just drawn to her. Anywhere we go, people for some reason just gravitate towards her."

She got her Fish Wish at the Georgia Aquarium as part of the program with Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. She worked her way through the crowd in the River Scout exhibit.

Carson helped biologist Heather Dziedzic feed hungry alligators, and had the time of her life.

"She definitely has just that special personality,? her mother said. "And especially with what she has, nobody would know."

According to Dr. Flamini, Carson should continue to learn and develop and lead a normal adult life.

When you've gone through as much as Carson Hanley has, you learn how to have the gators in life eating out of your hand.