Where has the time gone?

I have not posted an update in eight months!

I owe at the very least picture entries for the following important milestones in the last few months:

• Declan's 1st birthday (There is SO MUCH GUILT for not posting these pictures!)

• Trick or Treating 2014

• Happy Holidays 2014 (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years)

• Davis Family Photoshoot

• Dad's minor stroke 

• Easter

• Watching the boys grow

On a more serious note, within the last eight months I've been undergoing some serious medical issues. Symptoms include extreme headache (especially with coughing, climbing stairs, bending over, sneezing, etc) extreme neck pain; shoulder pain; weakness in right hand and leg, balance problems;  ringing in ears; hoarseness/voice fluctuation, trouble finding the right words (brain knew what to say, but voice didn't listen); trouble swallowing; periods of vertigo, face tingling/numbness, seeing flashes of light in my vision, and light and sound sensitivity. 


After I started experiencing extreme the headaches (or rather one extreme headache that wouldn't go away) in November I started seeking help from pain management. A head CT had shown nothing and the caffeine/pain pills were not helping. I had to do something. I received an occipital nerve block which helped reduce the headache, but the symptoms were becoming more intense and more had started to appear. I started a plan for medial branch blocks working up to radiofrequency ablations. In the meantime receiving trigger point injections and chiropractic care.
I will have some time on my hands soon, so I should be able to add and backdate these entries.


After an MRI in December I was diagnosed with a Type I Chiari Malformation. I didn't realize that some of the things I were experiencing months before hand were symptoms until after I was diagnosed. I started physical therapy and started seeing a neurologist. Between all the different specialist I was going to the doctor almost daily. Each therapy would help for a few hour to a about a two days before it weakened and the same level of pain and discomfort came back. My neurologist suggested another type of MRI to look at the flow of CSF and it showed a block. She suggested I see a neurosurgeon.

Between the CINE MRI in January and the consultation with the Neurosurgeon at the end of March, I had a particularly bad fair up while at work and according to my work mates, I passed out. I had another MRI ordered because of the weakness in my limbs and the tingling/numbness in my face had started to become increasingly worse. The scan showed that the Chiari herniation was measuring larger than it had been in December.

After a very tearful meeting with the neurosurgeon we decided to go forth with surgery and that pretty much catches us up to now.

I'm having surgery tomorrow, or rather today, since it's after midnight. The link below gives a good description of what will happen. It's not a cure for Chiari, but it should help bring relief from some of the symptoms (if not all of them). I was extremely healthy before so I have hope.

 http://www.mayfieldchiaricenter.com/chiari_surgery.php

My faith is with God and I pray that he guides the surgeon's hands tomorrow as well as all of the staff that will be looking after me, including nursing, residents, anesthesiologist and anyone else that helps along the way and after!