Sajjad Hussain / AFP - Getty Images

Doctors prepare Roona Begum, a 15-month old girl suffering from hydrocephalus, a buildup of fluid inside the skull that leads to swelling, for surgery at a hospital in Gurgaon, near New Delhi, on May 15, 2013.

Roberto Schmidt / AFP - Getty Images

Roona Begum's parents Abdul Rahman and Fatima Khatun wait in anticipation as their daughter is taken for an MRI exam at a hospital in Gurgaon on April 17, 2013.

Doctors carried out life-saving surgery Wednesday on an Indian baby suffering from a rare disorder that caused her head to swell to nearly double its size, in a case that aroused sympathy worldwide.

"The surgery went perfectly, much better than expected," neurosurgeon Sandeep Vaishya said after carrying out a procedure to drain fluid from the head of 15-month-old Roona Begum, who was born with hydrocephalus.

The condition had caused Roona's head to swell to a circumference of 38 inches, putting pressure on her brain and making it impossible for her to sit upright or crawl.

"My wife and I were both so worried this morning," said Roona's father, 18-year-old Abdul Rahman. "But now when the doctor says everything went well, I feel hugely relieved."

Arindam Dey / AFP - Getty Images

Fatima Khatun kisses the head of her daughter, Roona Begum, at their mud hut in Jirania village, Tripura, on April 13, 2013. Roona's father, Abdul Rahman, told AFP at the time that he was praying for "a miracle" to save his only child.

Roberto Schmidt / AFP - Getty Images

Roona Begum is wheeled to an operating room moments before she had a drain valve in her head changed at a hospital in Gurgaon on May 2, 2013. Publication of pictures taken by an AFP photographer prompted the hospital, run by the private Fortis Healthcare group, to offer to treat Roona for free.

Roberto Schmidt / AFP - Getty Images

Roona Begum's father caresses the arm of his daughter moments after she was brought out of the operating theater after doctors changed a drain valve on May 2, 2013.

Sajjad Hussain / AFP - Getty Images

Doctors prepare Roona Begum for surgery on May 15, 2013.

Sajjad Hussain / AFP - Getty Images

Roona Begum's parents greet her after surgery on May 15, 2013.

Roberto Schmidt / AFP - Getty Images

Roona Begum's mother sits with her daughter at a hospital in Gurgaon on April 17, 2013.

Related:

AFP Correspondent blog: A new life for baby Roona

Hope for girl born with hair covering half her face

Herbert Neubauer / EPA

Plastic surgeon Oskar Assmann, center rear, stands next to his patient, Hungarian worker Tibor A., in Vienna's AKH hospital on May 13. The 37-year-old man drove just over nine miles to the nearest hospital on May 11 after he accidentally sawed off his right arm below the elbow while cleaning a machine that processes construction rubble. He was able to retrieve the cut-off arm from the machine, then drive himself from Purbach, eastern Austria, to a hospital in Eisenstadt. He was then flown to Vienna, where doctors successfully reattached the arm.

Narendra Shrestha / EPA

Bhawana Thami, then aged 8, cries while her father describes to a journalist her daughter's isolation from other children in their village, before Bhawana underwent surgery in Kathmandu, Nepal, on Feb. 28, 2012.

Bhawana Thami was born with a rare condition that left half of her face covered with hair. Without treatment, the moles that caused the hair to grow could have become cancerous, The European Pressphoto Agency reports.

When photographer Narendra Shrestha first met Bhawana in February last year, her father explained the trauma that the condition had caused her. People in their village in Nepal had called her names like monster and witch to her face, he said.

As her father told the story, tears welled up in Bhawana's eyes, Shrestha later recounted. It was at that moment that he took the photo above.

Narendra Shrestha / EPA

Bhawana looks at herself in a mirror for the first time after her operation at Model Hospital in Kathmandu on March 9, 2012.

Within days Bhawana underwent her first phase of plastic surgery, which was supported by the charity Child Workers in Nepal.

"As she recovered, right after the bandage was removed, she was given a mirror and she didn't let go of it for fifteen minutes," Shrestha recalls. "She just kept looking at herself."

Narendra Shrestha / EPA

Kaluman Thami takes Bhawana for a walk around Dusikharka village on Sept. 12, 2012.

Narendra Shrestha / EPA

Bhawana stands in front of her teacher and schoolmates during a class at the local school in Dusikharka on Sept. 13, 2012.

Bhawana returned to her village and began to find acceptance from the villagers who had shunned her. On a visit in September, Shrestha saw her playing a full part in activities at her school and witnessed the warmth of her family life.

Narendra Shrestha / EPA

Bhawana poses with her family next to their home in Dusikharka on Sept. 13, 2012.

Narendra Shrestha / EPA

Bhawana poses for a portrait on Sept. 13, 2012.

In February of this year, Bhawana had a second operation that completely removed the hair from her face. She will need to undergo a third procedure when she turns fourteen years old.

Bhawana's story is one of hope, Shrestha says, and he no longer approaches her just as a photographer: "It’s a different attachment that I feel towards her and her father now, and I cannot detach myself from them, not yet."

Narendra Shrestha / EPA

Bhawana lies on a stretcher in an operating room at Model Hospital in Kathmandu on Feb. 20, 2013.

Narendra Shrestha / EPA

Bhawana and her father smile from a bus window on their way back to their village after completing the second phase surgery in Kathmandu on Feb. 27, 2013.

Related:

Video: 'World's hairiest girl' inspires community

Na Son Nguyen / AP

Patients sit in a sauna room at the Scientology Health Center of the Vietnam Association of Agent Orange Victims in Thai Binh, Vietnam. The center runs a 25-day health program which, as well as massive consumption of vitamins, includes four-hour sauna sessions and a morning run.

THAI BINH, Vietnam — North Vietnamese army veteran Nguyen Anh Quoc grimaces as he forces down the last of the 35 vitamins he takes each morning. After decades of suffering from illnesses he believes were caused by exposure to Agent Orange, he is putting his faith in a regime advocated by the Church of Scientology.

"I have to take them," the 62-year-old said at a treatment center established with the help of a Scientology-funded group. "They will clean up my body."

Na Son Nguyen / AP

Patients at the center take a dose of 35 vitamins early each morning.

The center, a converted mushroom farm in northern Vietnam, owes as much to Scientology's desire to expand around the world, away from scandal in the United States, as it does to pressure in Vietnam to try to help aging veterans still suffering from the effects of war.

Many medical experts regard the treatment — a 25-day vitamin and sauna regime — as junk medicine or even dangerous. But for now at least, it has found fertile ground here. Read the full story.

Previously on PhotoBlog: The legacy of Agent Orange

Na Son Nguyen / AP

Patients get their pulse and blood pressure checked by doctors at the center. While there is no medical evidence that the treatment is effective, Vietnamese authorities are supporting it as a way of relieving some of the suffering of the between 2 and 4 million people suffering from illnesses linked to exposure to Agent Orange during the war.

Na Son Nguyen / AP

A patient enters a sauna room.

Editor's note: Photos taken on March 18, 2013 and made available to NBC News today.

Ian C. Bates / The Dallas Morning News via Reuters

Dallas Wiens and Jamie Nash pose for pictures after getting married at Ridglea Baptist Church in Forth Worth, Texas, March 30, 2013. Wiens was the first American to receive a full face transplant after accidentally touching a high voltage wire while on a construction job and met Nash at a burn victim support group at Parkland Memorial Hospital after Nash had been in a bad car accident that left her with severe burns throughout her body.

Ian C. Bates / The Dallas Morning News via Reuters

By Elvira Sakmari and Scott Gordon, NBCDFW.com

The couple plans to put their pasts behind them.

"There's no reason to dwell on the past," he said.

"It's dead and gone," she added. "It burned in the fire."

They said they make the perfect couple and help balance each other.

Her hands, for example, were severely injured in her accident. His are fine.

She can see. He lost his eyesight in the accident.

"It's a story of hope, a story of true survivors," Nash said. "I mean, if we can do it, I guarantee you, anybody out there -- we all have a story. We're all going through something. And I want to give everybody hope."

Read the full story.

Vera Crosby, photography by Vera

Ian C. Bates / The Dallas Morning News via Reuters

Wiens and Nash have their first dance after getting married.

Ian C. Bates / The Dallas Morning News via Reuters

Wiens and Nash cut their wedding cake.

Mayra Beltran / Houston Chronicle via AP

Audrina Cardenas smiles as a steady stream of doctors inspect her plastic heart protective shield a day before she was discharged from Texas Children's Hospital in Houston. Audrina Cardenas, was born with much of her heart outside her body, a highly unusual condition that's usually fatal within the first few days after birth.

By Lisa Flam

A Texas woman received tragic news 16 weeks into her pregnancy: An ultrasound showed that her fetus was developing with a rare heart malformation that almost always proves fatal.

On Audrina’s second day of life, a team of 11 doctors at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston spent six hours performing a life-saving, open-heart surgery to make room in her chest for the one-third of her heart that was outside of her body. Read the full story.

Editor's note: Photo taken on Jan. 22, 2013 and made available to NBC News today.

Audrina Cardenas and her mother appeared on NBC's TODAY on Tuesday. Watch the video below:

AFP - Getty Images

A mobile phone and a hands-free kit are seen in a 58 year old Sri Lankan prisoner's rectum in an X-ray image received by AFP on Feb. 8, 2013.

Published at 9:04 a.m. ET: A Sri Lankan prisoner who tried to hide his cellphone during a search of his cell was caught out when guards heard a ring tone emanating from his rear end, according to a hospital official.

The 58-year-old convict had to be admitted to the national hospital in Colombo where doctors later retrieved the handset, together with an accompanying hands-free kit, from his rectum. -- Agence France-Presse

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Dolores Ochoa / AP

Helianny Garcia uses crutches as she parades down the catwalk during Bionic Fashion Day at the Metropolitan Cultural Center in Quito, Ecuador, on Feb. 5. Garcia is a cancer survivor from Venezuela whose right leg was amputated in her fight against the disease.

Published at 3:53 p.m. ET: As Fashion Week starts today in New York, the catwalks will be filled with implausibly thin models who embody a very particular idea of physical perfection, but in Ecuador on Tuesday a different kind of fashion show took place. At Bionic Fashion Day the models were young cancer survivors who had lost limbs to the disease. Sixteen models from Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Colombia and Ecuador wore creations by Ecuadorean designers at an event organized by the Youth Against Cancer Foundation. The event aimed to counter stereotypes and break down social barriers for cancer patients and survivors. 

Editor's note: All photos are from Feb. 5 and were made available to NBC News on Feb. 7. 

Dolores Ochoa / AP

Cintia Caraguay of Ecuador prepares to model a creation before the start of Bionic Fashion Day. Caraguay lost her right leg to cancer.

Dolores Ochoa / AP

Eric Salas from Venezuela, who lost his right arm to cancer, is prepared to model clothing at Bionic Fashion Day.

Dolores Ochoa / AP

Yulexi Chevez of Ecuador is assisted as she parades down the catwalk using her prosthetic leg at Bionic Fashion Day.

Dolores Ochoa / AP

Arli Mujica, from Venezuela, supports herself on crutches as she wears a piece of her costume before the start of Bionic Fashion Day. Mujica is a former runner who lost her left leg to cancer. Today, Mujica is a competitive swimmer at the paralympic level.

Related content:

Woman with terminal cancer a model of beauty in Paris photo shoot

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Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters

Benjamin Schmittand Helena Jachmann, supporters of the foodsharing movement sort through food found in a dumpster behind a supermarket in Berlin, February 4. Foodsharing is a German internet based platform where individuals, retailers or producers have the possibility of offering surplus food to consumers for free.

Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters

Helena Jachmann, supporter of the foodsharing movement holds a pepper found in a dumpster behind a supermarket in Berlin, Feb. 4. Foodsharing is a German internet based platform where individuals, retailers or producers have the possibility of offering surplus food to consumers for free.

Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters

Benjamin Schmitt and Helena Jachmann, supporters of the foodsharing movement sort food found in a dumpster behind a supermarket in Berlin, Feb. 4.

Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters

Raphael Fellmer, a supporter of the foodsharing movement shows Christmas biscuits collected from waste bins of supermarket at his home in Berlin, on Jan. 31.

Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters

Raphael Fellmer, a supporter of the foodsharing movement has lunch with his partner Nieves Palmer Muntaner, with food cooked from vegetables from waste of an organic supermarket in Berlin, on Jan. 24.

By Stephen Brown, Reuters

Published at 11:15a.m. ET: BERLIN  - Just past midnight behind a Berlin supermarket, two youngsters with torches strapped to their woollen hats sift through rubbish bins for food that is still edible, load their bikes with bread, vegetables and chocolate Santas and cycle off into the darkness.

It is not poverty that inspires a growing number of young Germans like 21-year-old student Benjamin Schmitt to forage for food in the garbage, but anger at loss and waste which the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates at one-third of all food produced worldwide, every year, valued at about $1 trillion. Continue Reading.

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Lucy Nicholson / Reuters

Pat Weber, 81, leads the Sun City Poms cheerleader dancers as they rehearse in Sun City, Ariz. on Jan. 7.

Lucy Nicholson / Reuters

Donald Smitherman, 98, kisses his wife Marlene at the end of a dance in Sun City, Ariz.

Lucy Nicholson / Reuters

A sign marks the boundary of Sun City, Ariz.

Sun City, Ariz. was built in 1959 by entrepreneur Del Webb as America's first active retirement community for the over-55s. Webb predicted that retirees would flock to a community where they were given more than just a house with a rocking chair in which to sit and wait to die.

Today's residents keep their minds and bodies active by socializing at over 120 clubs with activities such as square dancing, ceramics, roller skating, computers, cheerleading, racquetball and yoga. There are 38,500 residents in the community with an average age 72.4 years.

-- Pictures taken Jan. 5 - 8 by Reuters photographer Lucy Nicholson, and made available to NBC News today.

Lucy Nicholson / Reuters

Barbara Miller, 77, and Inge Natoli, 90, practice synchronized swimming in Sun City, Ariz.

Lucy Nicholson / Reuters

John Longo, 88, swims his daily mile training for the Masters national championship in Sun City, Ariz.

Lucy Nicholson / Reuters

Jimmy Trollen, 80, rides in a boat he converted into a vehicle in Sun City, Ariz.

Lucy Nicholson / Reuters

Constantine Moundalexis, 55, shows his mother, Catherine Morgan, 82, her graduation photograph in Sun City, Ariz.

Lucy Nicholson / Reuters

Zerik Hakobyan, 86, touches her great-grandson Roman Hakobyan, 16 months, at the grave of her late husband Ovanes Hakobyan in Sun City, Ariz.

AFP - Getty Images

Parents watch over their children under a row of intravenous drips at a hospital for flu treatment in Beijing on Jan. 13.

AFP - Getty Images

Nurses attend to a young child in a hospital for flu treatment in Beijing on Jan. 13.

According to the Global Times, heavy pollution like the smog that hit Beijing this past weekend could exacerbate the flu season in China, experts say. The pollutants lower residents’ ability to combat the flu and the virus is more likely to remain in the air after an infected person sneezes.

Public anger in China over dangerous levels of air pollution spread on Jan. 14 as state media editorials questioned official transparency and the nation's breakneck development.

-- Agence France-Presse

Related: 'Worst' smog ever hitting Beijing, environmentalists say

AFP - Getty Images

Nurses attend to a baby in a hospital for flu treatment in Beijing on Jan. 13.

Previously on PhotoBlog:

• Robot staff at restaurant in China delights customers
• China landslide kills dozens, more remain missing
• Hot colors light up frozen sculptures at the Harbin ice festival
• Taking a full load: Potential students crowd in for entrance exams in China
• 'I want to wash diapers': Groom's parents get in wedding spirit