Background

We are starting this blog to keep friends and family updated on Christopher, his Chiari surgery, related procedures and recovery....

Christopher started having severe headaches and nose bleeds early in 2010. He also would say things tasted funny that he was accustomed to eating. He would go to the nurse often during school. He went to his pediatrician and she was worried due to the odd tasting food and nose bleeds with the headaches. Naturally the thoughts went to a tumor in his head. The pediatrician wanted and MRI right away. His MRI revealed he actually had a Chiari Malformation. What is Chiari Malformation? The Chiari Malformation is 15mm...sizeable enough...especially for a 5 year old (now 6 as of May 17th). The Chiari Malformation was causing his brain to push down on his Cerebelum, and for it to herniate...which equals major headaches. He has been getting 3 to 6 (or more) a day. They are sometimes the sort of headaches that make him nauseated, and some even had him grabbing/squeezing his head. Naturally they have laid him up and made him cry due to the severity. There isn't anything other than Tylenol that he can have, but it doesn't really help. The malformation is serious enough that a car accident or other accident that causes a whiplash motion could cause the malformation to sever his spinal cord.

We were trying to get him in at the Mayo Clinic, but the appointment was too long to make him wait. His pediatrician had already set a consultation appointment with Dr Sklar in Dallas, TX for April 13th. We couldn't get him into the Mayo till June, so we decided to go ahead with Dr Sklar. He has top credentials for this surgery, and is a teacher of the Chiari surgery in Texas. He was one of the 5 Neurosurgeons for separating a set of conjoined twins. Here is his office and some info on him.

Christopher's surgery is scheduled for May 27th in Dallas. He is having an MRI on the 26th that will take video of his spinal fluid moving thru his spine in real time. This will take about 2 hours, so he will have to be put under for this also. The poor guy will be put under 2 days in a row, but luckily the MRI anesthesia will not be fully under...just enough to keep him from moving around.

We will be in Dallas for over a week. I hope that he's out of the hospital before we leave, but I don't currently get PTO at work...so I can't miss that much work and not to mention the travel costs. We looked into the Ronald McDonald House, but they don't make reservations....you have to show up and see if they have room. It's an awfully risky thing to do when you travel over 1000 miles. In addition to this there is a conference in town, so the hotels that give a medical discount are completely booked up. We found a hotel 12 miles away, so in Dallas this means a 20 minute drive at the quickest.

We will be very happy to have this behind us. Christopher is a 6 year old boy, and full of a ton of energy...but the headaches really change his demeanor. We will update this blog as his surgery and recovery progresses so that you can keep up to date. Thank you to everyone that has been praying for him and for his surgeon to have steady hands.