Anarachnoid cyst is a cerebrospinal fluid-filled sac that is located between the brain and the arachnoid membrane, one of the three membranes that cover the brain. These rare tumors can also develop in the spine.
Primary arachnoids are prenatal abnormalities of the early gestational brain. Secondary seizures are less common and result from head injury, meningitis, or brain surgery.
Typical symptoms of an arachnoid cyst around the brain are headaches, nausea and vomiting, dizziness, and problems with walking and balance.
They attack boys 4 times more often than girls. This is the story of Mitch whose life was destroyed, and his family’s life changed forever because of this benign cyst. Mitch had a primary cyst.
This story tells how social medicine intervenes in these children. I call him twister, because over the years Mitch needed to be a pain in the ass. Just the thought makes me miserable.
Mitch was born in Canada. Canada has a socialized healthcare system, which is a wonderful basic healthcare system. There were no worries when you were sick or cold or broken leg. He was a child in Canada having heaven. The stress was not about money, you just went to the hospital and in a more relaxed atmosphere, very similar to the birth at home, you could calmly cat scan (on the mention of MRI); what was it like anyway^) Mitch was put on the waiting list for years. The nearest cat scan was 200 miles away.
Meanwhile, Mitch didn’t care about the other boys. What are you doing on your birthday? What was Christmas? Who cares? He does not learn to speak. He was constantly doing this, running out of the house into public, and could not lead him to church or to the barn without embarrassing mishaps. His mother had sometimes heard other kids call him a monster.
Taking Mitch to the doctor was miserable. It would take forever to see the artist, and Mitch was doing it and holding it, observing it, following everything minute by minute. She was exhausted. When at last they went up to see the artist, he would look at him for a few minutes and say something absurd as if he had a “disease of gigantism,” and let him go. These visits are far-reaching, and have become very valuable.
At last the mother stopped going somewhere, and refused to cross. It is impossible to visit what the child is doing and is constantly criticized and redirected. It was useless to have friends. They didn’t understand their friends, they were uncomfortable, and they stopped coming over anyway. Very few people have what it takes to help someone, when the kind of help that is needed remains. They believe that men are charitable when they can do an act or two of kindness, but no one wants to render such service to a needy mother without payment. And who can blame them?
In mothers the greatest help finally became the older children, David, Rachel, and Adam, to help his mother also with his life.
Dad helped when he could, but he was a truck driver and he lived to do it. The father was of great assistance in going to the most special designs, and assisting the mother as best he knew how. Eventually he got married for the second time and separated his own life.
Someone canceled his appointment for the cat scan machine, so Mitch got his x-ray in a month for his year. The doctor then told the parents that Mitch only had half a brain, that there was nothing they could do, and that it was an educational problem. This was the worst parents day alive. Mother is devastated!
Mother was a US citizen, immigrated to Canada. The parents decided that it would be best for the US to move for the help that the child needed. They embarked on a journey that took them two years to complete. The father had to apply for a work visa for his US work, which took a year. Only at this time was the decision given to either place the child in an institutional school or place him in an institution so that the mother could have a life.
Meanwhile, Mitch was getting worse. Life at home, in the church, and in the community was difficult. Let the pain be intolerable, and there is no way of communicating except by action.
Through first time parents they got the child to a neurosurgeon three years ago. The arachnoid had grown so large that the skull was beginning to open. A doctor in Canada had diagnosed him with pain, pressure, and irreparable brain damage.
A neurosurgeon in Bismarck, North Dakota took one look at the same x-ray that had been available in Canada; to our astonishment he knew that Mitch had a full brain. Suddenly the family had new hope! First, Mitch was offered an MRI, although his family never heard from him.
The surgery goes away, and a deflection cyst is placed inside to drain it into the stomach.
I don’t pretend to know all the details of how social medicine would work in United States, but I know the misdiagnosis and pain that Mitch went through is directly linked to Canada’s socialist medical system. If the family had stayed there I believe Mitch only half of his brain would have died.
If the U.S. uses a socialized medical program without safeguards to avoid these types of cuts, potentially thousands of people could suffer. We have to make sure that provisions are taken care of in more serious cases. This family’s life has been ruined. I know because she is my mother and Mitch is my son.
There is always hope, and Mitch’s story is not bad, and some people have helped. In the next post, as written by Paul Harvey I will tell you “the rest of the story…
www.nationalinstituteofhealth.com)
www.arachnoidcyst.org
