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The following is from ABC.
Carter Family -- The Carters of
Billings, MT were surprised to receive the news that Ty and the gang will
transform their current home of a chicken coop into the home of their dreams
in just seven days on "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," SUNDAY, APRIL 6
(8:00-9:00 p.m., ET) on ABC. (Rebroadcast. OAD 10/21/07)
Julie Carter suffers from a genetic disorder known as Chiari Malformation,
as does her 21-year-old daughter, Jade. She fears her other two daughters
may have it as well. Julie and Jade have had several brain surgeries costing
over $500,000. This condition has over 85 symptoms -- which makes it very
easy to misdiagnose -- and causes depression and chronic fatigue. Julie has
made it her passion to spread awareness of the rare disorder and has become
a hero to thousands. She writes a monthly newsletter to Chiari patients,
providing them support, compassion and valuable information, which she
assembles and distributes with her own money. She also started Chiari People
of Montana, a support group. With her success, she was recently asked to run
the first Chiari Malformation chapter in Billings. This is a bittersweet
honor, since her makeshift office is hardly suitable for getting out her
newsletters.
Julie is so consumed with helping others that she rarely thinks of her own
living situation -- which is a refurbished chicken coup -- but the
astronomical medical bills are a regular reminder that there's little chance
their house will ever be fixed. From the outside their home looks like a
long warehouse; the exterior walls are buckling and some of the windows are
cracked, which makes it tough in the brutal Montana winter. They've made the
best of the interior, but the cracks in the floor and the unusable space
makes heating the place expensive. It's now up to the design team to get
this family out of the chicken coop and into a healthy house, and to reward
this selfless mother with a state of the art facility where she can run the
Billings chapter of Chiari. While Ty and the designers, local builder Jeff
Junkert Construction, Inc. and hundreds of volunteers and workers are
rebuilding their home, the Carter family will go on vacation at the Hilton
Times Square in New York City.
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