Patrice
Karen, I have been going through so many life changes, because it was spotted late. In May of 98 I was first diagnosed with acm w/hydrocephalus, but I went through years of being told they were just headaches or I think your stressed just take this prozac, which I refuse becasue I know something wasn;t right.It wasn't till I was starting to show signs of a stroke, my watch commander: you see I was a Police Officer and needed to be alert anyway they way I was acting they think I was drinking on the job. Well I "ll just move ahead here, I finally found a DOctor who specializes in this and people from all over the world come to him. See I had a whole lot of symtoms but just blew them off. It ended up my skull was putting alot of pressure on brain, and the stem &tossil were malformed, a long with other problems. I had surgery was doing fine for a while the middle of 1999 I started to have all kind of things go wrong. There was so much pressure in my head I thought it would explode. My leg was hurting and both arms and legs started going numb ocassionly. I had such painful cramping in hands, fingers, I couldn't reach twist turn the cramping was just comsuming me I couldn't even stretch in the morning. Well here again I will just skip down to my doctor finding that my spinal cord was crushing due to again the acm. Yes another surgery. But before the surgery my doctor had me in a collar because I wanted to wait I was going to the bahamas in a few months, stupid me, upon arriving home I was taken from airport straight to Hospital had a mini stroke. Well because I waited I waited to long and a set of a whole new peoblems to deal with I wish I could go on because I think it would be helpful but you can see I'm starting to write a novel here. Please I hope you get this message karen and read it, please email me and I will tell you so much more I do have msn instant message. Please forgive my typing my hands don't work well. So hang in there because you diffiently want to find an excellent doctor and research so much more. So please feel free to ask anything I pretty much . Good luck