Mel joined the Forum at www.chiari.co.uk a few weeks ago......and basically exploded in with a heck of a passion, lots of laughs, loadsa giggles and has just fitted right away! Mel is a bundle of fun and joy and has such a positive and addictive outlook.

Read here story....in her own words and style as I reckon it will touch many hearts, resemble many of our own stories and give you a giggle at the same time.

Rite ere goes.....

My childhood was good, just like any other spoilt kid lol til i turned 11, thats wen everything changed.
While playing outside i thought i was dying wen it felt like my head was about to explode al of a sudden and i fought my brains was gona burst outa my head and land at my feet. i cudnt c properly and i cudnt focus on anything and it seemed the world around me was spinning in circles. And thats wen it all started.

From then on i got these headaches as often as they pleased. Anything that involved putting pressure on my head
* Sneezing * Going to the loo
* Coughing * Pushing
* Laughing * Lifting heavy objects
* Bending Over * Or when i get stressed or annoyed
So from then on i tried to learn to take control of everything i done.

Mum took me to the doc march 1995 and the doc said ''yea this young girl has migraines, i suppose you have to sit in a dark room wen u get the sore heads, thats wat migranes do'' i said no i just take excruciating pain in the back of my head and it feels like my left eye will pop out. Yea migraines just as i thought..

The next day on my way to school on the bus, i vomited on the bus, and that became a regular occurrence. When doing PE i found i hadnt the same level of fitness anymore and found it hard to breathe, and my heart was beating so fast and missing beats i thought it was gona stop beating altogether. And i became so clumsy, i would just fall, no warning, nothing, just down like a bag of spuds, in a pile, mortified lol.
Not that i ever fell wen i was on my own, No, god forbid i wud fall wen no one cud see me at school and have a real gud laugh at me al day.
Whenever i took a sore head at school i used to have to go and lie down, that always seemed to ease my headaches a little. Once again everyone else laughed at me. I was a freak.

The only thing that kept me goin was my family, they wer and stil are so supportive. My mum, dad bro and sis are with me every step of the way, i cudnt av done it without them, o and my new hubby.

Bac to the docs again, trying to explain to him i didnt want to go to school, but i just didnt want to go to school cuz i kept being sick on the bus, and by now i only had one friend, cuz every1 else laughed at me, or bullied me. Everyday at school was the same. Somhow he managed to cum to the conclusion i had depression. So he put me on antidepressants, just wat i needed at that age (joke). He didnt even check my pulse or my breathing rate, he said to mum shes over reacting, kids with depression tend to do that for attention.

In PE the following month we wer doin cross country, and i cudnt run the length of myself and the stupid PE teacher, shouting wat makes u fink ur special, keep running Melissa, ur so lazy lately. I though i was goin to die and my head was pumping flatout. I told her my heart was going to explode. She made me sit at resting point for 10mins and asked me to count my pulse. A min later i told her it was 120 beats p/m. Then she accused me of not being able to count, and checked it herself. Next thing i new she was whisking me to the nurses station, and i was told just to stay there, til she came bac and til my mum arrived. She told mum to take me to the docs again. Great i thought..

Seen a different doc this time, who went crazy wen he seen i was on antidepressants, he said they were a very strong adults dose and i had to cum of them immediately, and he claimed thats wat had made my pulse and breathing rate change rapidly, but i knew otherwise, i had the symptoms before hand.

I visited the doc so many times in the next 3 years that i knew everytime the doc seem me cuming , he kinda tuted. I was a total hypochondriac, maybe i just had to accept it. The only thing the doc said that ever put me at ease was, once wen i was complaining about my headaches, i said i cant push, how wil i ever be able to have a child naturally, and he said wel before you tend to get pregnant or get married, we wil talk about this again, so that kept me at ease for the next 5 yrs r so.

Headaches came everyday, mayb 30 of them, sum lasting hours, or 3 seconds or a few mins, depends what i was doing that brought it on. I had chronic neck pain, vomiting, falling al the time, a heart rate of 120 bpm, weird breathing rate, and strangely enough i hear little bubbles in my head wen i lye down and i hear like a siren type noise wen i lie on my left side. I am so emotional the slightest thing wud av my crying. My hand and feet are always so cold and my bum lol. I choke alot, on anything really. Exhaustion is awful no matter how long i sleep in bed im always tired. I waken up every hour and cant get bac to sleep.

So last year im planning my wedding and i go bac to the docs to see about maybe finally getting my head checked. It was a different doc again and i told him i wanted a mri, he said you cant just walk in ere and demand an mri, u have migraines and thats that. I told him for 15years i was totally sick of the NHS and i was going to go private and put in a letter of complaint. That changed his attitude, he referred me to a neurologist in craigavon hosp. At last i was getting somewer.

My appointment came and i cudnt believ it was the day before my wedding, as if i was stressed enough. I went and the neurologist told me strightaway i didnt have migraines. It wasnt even a possibility. She said i wil send u for an mri asap, but she explained she didnt think it was anything cancerous as i had had it since i was 11. She wanted to take bloods and i no i have bad veins so i new the next day at my wedding it was gona luk lik i had been injecting heroin for years lol, but i had waited for so long i wasnt goin to start complaining wen i was gettin sumwer.

Wedding went perfect and the day i arrived home from honeymoon i had the appointment for my mri for the following month.

After the mri i started to worry, if they found sumfing bad, or it may be afwul to say this, but if they found nothing wrong, i felt that would have been worse, it just ment that every1 was rite and i was just an over reactive hypochondriac.

Letter arrived and stated, i have reffered you to meet with a neurosurgeon in Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, as your mri shows you have an abnormality defect on the brain, probably present since birth. bla bla bla. What on earth did that mean....... Painc set in, but in a way so did relief.
I rang the consultant and she told me to grab a pen and told me i had a brain disorder called Arnold Chiari Malformation Type 1. I researched it on the net, and thats the day i realised i wasnt a freak, i had a brain disorder, and i had lots of the symptoms. Loud and clear i wanted to shout to the world, IM NO HYPOCHONDRIAC, i just av a weird brain.

Finally met with Mr Aobharb (God nos how to spel it) who explained to me i had to have major brain surgery and all about the disorder. Surgery wil be in 15weeks and it wil consist of bla bla bla and wil take an hour and a half and the chances of taking a stroke.

Less than a week later there was a cancellation and i took it.
Surgeon explained to mum that inside my head had rapidly got worse since the mri and he had alot more work to do than previously planned. Surgery took 6 hours. He removed part of my skull, lazered my tonsil to shrink it, wen shrunk it was stil to big so he removed half of it. He removed my top two vertebra from my spine and enlarged the two main blood vessels goin to my brain javascript:void(0);
In agony for 3 days, tromadol, codine and co-codomol, wer da hell was the morphine.....

After 6 days i got out. That was 9 weeks ago. Ive had lots of complications since including CFS leak twice, and an infection in my wound but im getting there slowly.

Last nite was my first nite out clubbing since the op, and it was great, was very weray of my head but it was great to be out and great to b alive.

The op has decreased the number of headaches i get but they are as excruciating as ever. I stil have most of my other symptoms but i now feel i have a new lease of life most of the time. Sumtimes i cnt and dont get outa bed, but most days im great.

I dnt no about al you guys over in the UK but for sum unknown reason the wheather ere in N Ireland 2day is roasting so im off to lie out in the sun. For al of you that are contemplating not getting outa bed or pjs today, i no hw u feel but 2mara wil be a better day.... or mayb the next

Take care to al of u lovely people, uve al made me feel so welcome.