AS Vida Dziduch is wheeled to intensive care after a 20-hour marathon operation, the 14-month-old's left foot begins to move, ever so slightly.
"That's remarkable," Royal Children's Hospital neurosurgeon Wirginia Maixner breathes.
It was a good sign after almost a third of Vida's brain - 60 per cent of its right hemisphere - was excised in an operation to save her vision and rid her of seizures that have blighted her short life.
Vida was born with the rare condition hemimegalencephaly, in which the brain is malformed in the womb. Half is abnormally larger, triggering uncontrollable seizures.
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Signs of it became evident when she was just six weeks old, in the form of twitches and clenches, which looked to parents Che Dziduch and Louisa Banner as though she was trying to sneeze.
Vida Dziduch was born with a rare brain condition. Picture: Jay Town Source: Herald Sun
At the urging of Ms Banner's grandmother, a former nurse, they took her to hospital. But after the rare diagnosis, they learned the surgery couldn't be done in their home state of Queensland.
Sydney was an option, but when the couple learned their doctor in Melbourne would be Ms Maixner, who led the separation of conjoined twins Trishna and Krishna, that settled things.
Typically, surgeons will address the condition by removing the problem area - in this case, the entire right side of Vida's brain.
But Vida has normal pathways for peripheral vision and movement within the malformed lobes, which Ms Maixner is trying to save.
Vida Dziduch and her parents Louisa Banner and Che Dziduch, at the Royal Children's Hospital before marathon surgery. Picture: Jay Town Source: Herald Sun
"The fallback is ... you can remove the entire right side. But rather than commit her to that, we can tailor her surgery around that," she said.
Surgery was the only option, given Vida had maxed out her medications and was still having up to 100 seizures a day.
Her dad said: "She drops back to the level of a six- or seven-month old after every big cluster."
On the operating table, Vida has her first haircut, as surgeons shave a strip down the middle of her head.
Ms Maixner and neurologist Simon Harvey are still undecided how far the resection should go.
Electrodes are placed on the brain, last-minute analysis which shows that 60 per cent, rather than 90 per cent, of the hemisphere should go.
Over 11 hours, the brain is carefully resected in tiny delicate strokes, as Vida goes through five times her blood volume in transfusions.
The return of seizures will mean further surgery to remove more tissue, and it could be up to two years before it's known if her peripheral vision has been affected.
Meanwhile, she will be comforted by kisses on her toes and loving affirmations whispered in her ear.
"We don't see this as a tragedy that's befallen us," said Ms Banner. "We've just got this extra hurdle we need to get through that we didn't expect."
Yesterday, Vida was unexpectedly transferred back to intensive care.
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