Lucky Man

I’m a lucky man!  Not only because I’m married to my beautiful dream girl and have two great kids.  Not only because I have a great family and wonderful friends.  Not only because I have a great life, and I look forward to each new day.  I’m a lucky man because I have Chiari Malformation Type 1!  Why would I consider myself lucky to have Chiari?  That’s an easy question to answer…Not only am I part of small exclusive group known as Chiarians, but… I only have Chiari Malformation Type 1.  Many other Chiarians have other problems which add to their pain; such as Syringomyelia or an Arachnoid Cyst.  There are many other things that Chiarians may have along with their Chiari, but I only have Chiari…I’m a lucky man!

Because I only have Chiari; I was eligible to have minimally invasive surgery in order to try and bring about some relief from my symptoms.  As Chiari blogger Michele at http://constrictedcranium.blogspot.com/ points out, we are never cured or fixed, and we will always be Chiarians.  We make the decision to have brain surgery in the hopes of getting some relief, knowing full well that the spoiled brat Chiari could sneak up on us any time it wishes to.

Thanks to that minimally invasive surgery my zipper is more like a button hole.

Here I am the day after my decompression surgery

Hey look, no more hospital gown.  This is the day I got home from the hospital one week post-op.

Below are post-op pictures of Michele from Constricted Cranium.  She also had an Arachnoid Cyst so as she said her zipper is the “deluxe model”.  Even though she has the “deluxe model” I have a feeling from reading her blog and exchanging comments with her that she considers herself lucky to have Chiari too.

Here she is the day after her decompression surgery.

Here she is 10 days post-op.

You can see from these pictures how I find it difficult to call mine a zipper when compared to her deluxe model.   Michele thanks for letting me use your pictures.

  

Please do all of us Chiarians a favor and check out as many other Chiari bloggers as you can.  Not only do we all experience Chiari differently, but all of us that chose decompression surgery experience the surgery and recovery differently.

Also please, please, please check out sites like http://www.chiariassociation.org/ and http://www.conquerchiari.org/index.html.  They have resource pages where you can find out more about Chiari, discover other Chiari bloggers and help us spread the word.  If we all educate others about Chiari then someday we won’t have to read about losing 3 Chiarians in a one week span because of “complications due to Chiari”, like we did last week.