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WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2016
The voice of Delta since 1922
Local woman in battle with brain disease
Sun Devils fend off Bulldogs
Elizabeth Zbitnoff endures debilitating effects of Chiari malformation daily IAN JACQUES
C o n t r i b u t i n g Wr i t e r
PHOTO BY GORD GOBLE
South Delta Sun Devils’ Stef Goulas gets the ball jarred loose on this pass attempt during his team’s 36-27 Western AAA Conference opening win over Victoria’s Belmont Bulldogs last Saturday in Tsawwassen. See Page 23 for more details.
Imagine waking up every morning and not remembering what you did the previous day. Imagine painful migraine headaches, constant fatigue and a desire to just curl up and sleep. These are just a few of the symptoms of Chiari malformation, a little known brain disease that Ladner’s Elizabeth Zbitnoff has battled most of her life. Zbitnoff, who has called Ladner her home for the past 20 years, says she was born with the condition and struggled through most of her youth with symptoms, but had no idea she had the disease until she began to severely decline physically and cognitively two years ago. “I remember the first migraine when I was eight years old,” she recalls. “I was always tired, fatigued, had headaches, but had no idea that I had this disease.” In January 2015, her health really took a turn for the worse. Her right eye started to swell. She experienced memory loss, and numbness and tingling in her legs. “I couldn’t focus, I couldn’t remember anything. I had been calling my neighbour by the wrong name for over a year and
Elizabeth Zbitnoff she never told me. This is something that can easily go undetected unless you get a brain scan. Once I went to the hospital, they found out what it was.” Chiari malformations (CMs) are structural defects in the cerebellum, the part of the brain that controls balance. CM can cause headaches, fatigue, muscle weakness, difficulty swallowing, choking and vomiting, dizziness, nausea, tinnitus, impaired coordination, neck pain, unsteady gait and more. She found out through research the only way to mitigate the symptoms was to have surgery. PERSONAL: see Page 3
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