Personal Narrative: How Surgery Has Affected My Life

This year I have gone through the toughest times in my life. In December I started getting really painful headaches again, a problem I’ve dealt with for a while but never this bad. During this time my headaches were so awful, I couldn’t go to school, I couldn’t see my friends, I couldn’t run, it hurt to walk, it felt like my world was crumbling. I felt as though this health problem stole everything I loved. Being was stuck at home incapable of doing anything, was extremely painful, it hurt knowing I couldn't do 95% of the things I loved, I had to stop working, switch to virtual school, and stop playing sports.

For 3 months I underwent sleep tests, tons of medication, EEG’s, and MRI’s, to figure out what was wrong. We realized it was my Arnold Chiari Malformation. After trying multiple different options, we realized surgery was the last choice we had to help. The day came to have surgery, they would soon take out a piece of my skull, and spine, to give my brain more room.

I was scared to go into surgery, but I knew it could help and would hopefully give me my life back. I trusted my doctors, neurosurgeon, and nurses to take care of me and kissed my parent's goodbye before
Due to the surgery, I can no longer play varsity flag football, instead, I will now be the manager so I can still be apart of something I love. Life is all about adapting to the situations you are in, and this major obstacle in my life has now opened so many new doors. After being almost bedridden for 4 months, I don’t take many things for granted, if you are able to run, run because you never know when you will be unable to, spend time with your friends and family and treasure all the small memories that happen. Sometimes it takes the worst situations to open your eyes and to truly help you value the life you are