09/29/2026
💜 Meet Mike, Crazy By Chiari’s Development & Program Coordinator.
For Chiari Awareness Month, we’re honoring members of the CBC team whose connection to Chiari is personal.
Mike’s story began years before he knew what Chiari was.
At just 13 years old, while playing baseball, he discovered that tightening his baseball cap as much as possible seemed to ease his headaches. At the time, those headaches were dismissed as adolescent migraines that were expected to fade with age.
They didn’t.
Instead, the headaches followed Mike into adulthood and eventually became severe enough to dramatically affect his life. Before decompression surgery, he was also diagnosed with two transient ischemic attacks.
During one especially frightening episode, the people around him feared he might not survive. When the possibility of calling a priest for Last Rites was raised, Mike’s response was simple:
“I’m not dead yet.”
In January 2013, Mike underwent Chiari decompression surgery.
More than a decade later, he has never required a revision, and the devastating headaches that once controlled so much of his life have not returned.
But his story also reflects something important about Chiari: improvement does not always mean every symptom disappears.
Mike still experiences lasting effects, including ongoing pressure sensations in his head, despite no longer having the severe headache pain he once knew.
His journey from unexplained childhood symptoms, to diagnosis, to surgery, and now life more than a decade after decompression gives him a perspective that cannot be learned from a textbook.
At CBC, Mike brings that lived experience into his work helping develop programs and strengthen the organization for the people we serve.
We are proud to have him on our team.
💜 Doing Good Things.
