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‘Something Wasn’t Right’; Woman Diagnosed With Chiari, A Rare Brain Disorder

SUNBURY — Sometimes it’s patients who teach their doctors a thing or two. Such is the case of a woman in Northumberland County who knew something wa...

SUNBURY -- Sometimes it's patients who teach their doctors a thing or two. Such is the case of a woman in Northumberland County who knew something wasn't right even though her symptoms were fairly vague and she was reassured nothing was wrong. As it turns out, she had a rare condition that required major surgery.

Mikki Anselmo of Sunbury can boast a long list of athletic achievements in high school and college and she's proud to show off those memories.

"Back in the day I played a lot of sports: softball, ice hockey," she said.

The 32-year-old went on to be a combat medic in the army and a Danville firefighter for a time. She lived a very active life until a few years ago, when she started noticing some odd symptoms.

"The weirdest one was my left foot would just completely go numb, just fall asleep. I'd be walking and it would fall asleep."

She'd stumble from time to time and dealt with headaches, nothing severe. She said doctors didn't seem to be concerned, so she continued doing what she loved to do--spending time outside in her garden and playing with her dogs.

But last year, Mikki says she fell down a flight of stairs, seemingly for no reason.

"I was a little dizzy. I had a pounding headache and my ears started to ring."

That was enough to get her to Mallory Neff, a physician assistant with Geisinger Health System.

Neff says Mikki showed only mild concussion symptoms, but they both knew something wasn't adding up.

"We did send her out by ambulance to have a CT scan. At that point the CT scan was negative, which is great news, but then you're left with, what's going on?" Neff said.

It was Dr. Shelly Timmons who was finally able to answer that question. The neurosurgeon diagnosed Mikki with a rare disorder called a chiari malformation. That's when the back part of the brain, which controls coordination and movement, is essentially too big for the skull. The fix was major surgery to expand the cranial vault in the back of the head.

"Once scar tissue is relieved and spinal fluid is circulating better, we put a patch on the membrane to allow it to go backward instead of inwards on itself," Dr. Timmons said.

Dr. Timmons admits symptoms of chiari are non-specific and can plague patients for months or years. But says now that it's fixed, Mikki shouldn't have any more issues.

She's now back to work, back to her garden and her dogs. She doesn't hear perfectly out of one ear, but says she's as good as fixed.

And that physician assistant she saw wishes more patients paid attention like Mikki did.

"She was her best advocate. She kept coming back saying, 'This isn't me.'"

Dr. Timmons says chiari can be silent in childhood as the brain forms and grows, and often becomes symptomatic later in life, which is what happened with Mikki.

Doctors don't yet know what causes it.

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