Fluker was just 11 years old when doctors discovered a peripheral nerve sheath tumor.

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Arvind Mahankali, a 12-year-old seventh-grader from New York City, came in third when he misspelled "schwannoma, " a tumor of the sheath of a peripheral nerve.

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They performed an operation to rejoin the two ends of the sheath which normally surrounds the nerve fibres, then punctured the lens of the eye.

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Without the sheath, messages do not travel down the nerve - resulting in a range of problems including movement and cognition.

BBC: Nerves

The disease hinders development of the myelin sheath, a fatty covering that protects the brain's nerve fibers.

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