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When Brooklyn Dando, 14, of Harrisville, Pa., in Butler County, began experiencing double vision and headaches during a family vacation, her parents grew worried.
The symptoms were the early signs of a pituitary tumor at the base of her skull. Early treatment at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, including surgery by neurosurgeon Cody Nesvick, MD, helped preserve Brooklyn's vision.
Four months after surgery, Brooklyn is back to doing what she loves.
“There’s not really even words to describe (the care),” says Jaime, Brooklyn’s mother. “It’s just absolutely incredible.”
Sudden Symptoms
Brooklyn and her parents were vacationing in July 2025 when her symptoms appeared.
“She started complaining that she was seeing things double,” says Terry, Brooklyn's father. “At first, when she said it, we didn’t really know how serious it was. We didn’t really think it was anything serious.
“Then we kind of noticed one of her eyes was drifting a little bit, almost like it was crossing, and she complained of a headache. It was concerning.”
After they returned home from vacation, Jaime called Brooklyn’s eye doctor, but their soonest appointment was two weeks away. They next visited Brooklyn’s pediatrician. Although the pediatrician didn’t notice any neurological problems during the screening, they recommended that Brooklyn visit her eye doctor.
Jaime and Brooklyn still couldn’t land an earlier appointment and instead went to a pediatric ophthalmologist.
The ophthalmologist noticed that Brooklyn had abnormal eye movements and papilledema, a swelling of the optic nerve. She told Jaime that Brooklyn needed to go to the UPMC Children’s emergency department right away.
“She basically said, ‘You’re going to get in your car, you’re going to go to Children’s Hospital, you are not going to go home,’” Jaime says.
Learning the Diagnosis
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans taken at UPMC Children’s showed that Brooklyn had a cystic lesion in her pituitary gland.
The pituitary is the body’s master hormone regulator, sitting at the base of the brain and controlling hormone secretion throughout the body. Pituitary tumors can disrupt hormone production.
Brooklyn’s labs showed that she had highly elevated levels of the hormone prolactin. This finding meant she had a specific type of pituitary tumor called a prolactinoma.
The mass was benign (noncancerous), but it was pressing on her optic nerve and causing her vision issues.
“Once they took me into the other room, I could tell that the news wasn’t going to be good,” Jaime says. “I called my husband, so he was on the phone so that he could hear. The doctors were wonderful. Right off the bat, they said, ‘It’s not cancerous.’
“I was just speechless. Everything happened so quickly. I didn’t have time to register anything in my brain. I was very worried about her and how to tell her what was going on.”
Because of the tumor's significant compression of the optic nerves, it required immediate removal. Jaime and Brooklyn’s team scheduled surgery for the next day.
Jaime and Terry say that Brooklyn stayed calm when she learned she needed surgery.
“She's so much tougher than I'll ever be,” Terry says. “She handled it amazingly.”
Jaime says Dr. Nesvick’s calmness helped her stay calm.
“Dr. Nesvick was absolutely incredible,” Jaime says. “I just felt very reassured and just couldn’t wait to get it over with. I just felt she was in the best hands she could possibly be in.”
A Successful Surgery
Dr. Nesvick told Brooklyn and her family that his team would perform an endoscopic endonasal approach (EEA). This minimally invasive technique, pioneered at UPMC, removes tumors and other lesions through the nose.
Skull-base otolaryngologist Garret Choby, MD, obtained access to the tumor, assisted with the tumor resection, and reconstructed Brooklyn’s nasal cavity.
Dr. Nesvick and Dr. Choby successfully removed Brooklyn’s tumor.
“I liked that they had the screens in a certain place where you can see the progress of the surgery — whether she's in pre-op or the operating room,” Terry says. “They did give us updates. It was nerve-racking, but at the same time, they made me feel at ease that things are going to be fine — we’ve got the best of the best doing this.”
The day after surgery, Jaime noticed a major improvement in Brooklyn’s visual symptoms.
“It was almost immediate,” she says. “The double vision was almost completely gone immediately. By the second day, it was gone altogether.”
Making a Complete Recovery
Brooklyn spent about six days in total at UPMC Children’s after her procedure, making progress every day.
“I remember Dr. Nesvick saying she was one of the fastest recoveries he’s seen with this surgery," Jaime says.
After returning home, Brooklyn continued to recover. After about a month, she returned to competing in horse showing competitions — one of her loves.
“She’s doing everything that every 14-year-old little girl should be doing,” Jaime says.
Brooklyn’s three-month follow-up appointment showed no signs of the pituitary tumor, an indication that her treatment has likely cured her of her tumor. She currently has to take medicine for an adrenal insufficiency her tumor caused. She also experienced a brief scare in October when she had blurry vision at school.
After a quick trip to UPMC Children’s, Brooklyn learned that she’d need glasses, but there were no major problems.
Jaime says the care that Brooklyn received at UPMC Children’s was “absolutely phenomenal.”
“There’s not a negative thing I could think to say,” Jaime says. “Even when we had to go back for that little scare (in October), we walked into the room, and she said, ‘Oh my gosh, this feels just like home.’ We were both so comfortable and not even a bit scared or nervous because they made us feel so comfortable the time we were there before.”
Terry and Jaime say they both appreciated the time that Brooklyn’s care team spent with them. They also liked that they included Brooklyn in her own care.
“I can’t speak highly enough of any of them,” Terry says. “A lot of the time, when they would come into the room, although they were talking to us, they weren’t looking at us — they were looking at Brooklyn, and it was like they were having a conversation with her, asking her what was going on and her opinion of things.
“I’ve been to the hospital with other family members, and it’s rare that you really get a chance to talk to the doctor very often. They were in every day, every member of the team, letting us know what was going on, explaining it to us so we understood, and letting Brooklyn know what was going to happen next. It made it so much easier to go through it with the compassion they had and the empathy that they had.”
Brooklyn’s treatment and results may not be representative of all similar cases.