Ed. Note:  The opinions expressed below are solely those of the author.  They do not represent the opinions of the editor, publisher, or this publication.  Anyone with a medical problem is strongly encouraged to seek professional medical care.

My name is Michelle Dennis I am 39 years old and I have Chiari Malformation Type 1.

I just watched extreme home makeover about the Julie Carter Family and it really touched me, ( course all of them do). I live in Taylorsville, UT I have been to extreme home makeovers in Bountiful and Logan and you don't know how bad I wanted to be in there, getting my elbows dirty and possibly breaking a few nails just to be able to serve.

When I watched this weeks edition, it really made me feel very fortunate about my condition and blessed that I didn't have it so severe.

In August 2000 was when I was diagnosed with Chiari.
I never had headaches that were severe, I did have tingling and numbness in my arms. I remember going outside in the summer and looking at the dandelions in bloom, they didn't look like average sized dandelions through my left eye though, they looked more like pom poms. I made an appointment with my regular Dr. Dr Scott Sheridan @Granger Medical, He then referred me to Dr Evan Black. I took the tests the pokes and the shocks and my strength was great, so was my balance. They then did an MRI and that is when they discovered my condition.

They showed me how the cerebullar tonsils were elongated, and plugging the escape for my fluid, from the brain, to escape. I also have a cervical syrinx where the very little fluid that I did have would spit out just a little and go into the syrinx and just over time it built up and started pressing against my spine which was causing the numbness in my arms.

I then was refereed to Dr. Christopher Uchiyama a neurosurgeon to double check the symptoms and schedule my surgery. When Dr. Uchiyama told me what I had I said "oh this must be pretty common" he said I was actually the first one that year to get done.

Knowing you have something like that your mind starts to wonder and think quite a bit.
But through my faith in My Heavenly Father and Lord Jesus Christ I knew everything would work out ok.
In surgery they made an incision on my brain and grafted it, removed half of my c2 vertebrae, and made the hole in my skull bigger just to make room for my cerebellar tonsils.

After a week. we celebrated My 32nd birthday. 2 Weeks after surgery I was taking my kids to school. I made a decision I could lay around and have other families make dinner for my family and take my kids to school or I could heal myself because that is my responsibility of a mom. Don't get me wrong I appreciated all the help from family and neighbors but I didn't want to be a burden if I didn't have to.

I am now 39 Years old I love to talk about it when people see the zipper scar in the back of my head. But as far as I'm concerned I don't have it anymore, just a scar.

I would love to encourage anybody with this condition that it is all in your mind of how you come out of it. Find all the positive things in life to focus on rather than the symptoms or the condition. Just be grateful that we have wonderful doctors diagnose and do the best to their ability to correct it. I am very grateful to all the doctors involved at the University of Utah Hospital. and Dr. Uchiyama, who is now in California, I was very fortunate to have him work on me before transferring. He now has that great opportunity to help those in California with it.

-- Michelle Dennis
 

Return To Table Of Contents