What is decompression

     So, I've had many people ask me what the surgery entails.  My wife has done alot more research than what I have, so maybe I'll see if she'll come on here and correct anything I mispoke on.  In the meantime, I'll at least explain what my NS has said he is going to do.
     First option, I'm not sure how the NS explain the difference, but I'm going to call the first option a partial decompression.  This is what my NS said he will start with.  This consists of going in through the back of my head.  He will make an approximate 5-6 in long incision down the center of the back of my skull.  He will then separate the muscles on the back of my skull and find the base of my skull.  He will then drill back the bone surrounding the spinal cord and my cerebral tonsils.  In addition, he will most likely remove the back half of my C1 and the top back quarter of my C2 vertebrae.  This will make the hole at the base of the skull larger, thus providing more space for the spinal cord and the tonsils.  This surgery typically takes 2 hours, and will result in 2-3 days in the hospital and 2-3 weeks recovery at home before I'm able to do much of anything.
     At that point in the surgery, the NS will conduct an ultrasound of my brain itself to see how much room there is inside the brain lining, the dura, and see how well the spinal fluid is flowing.  This is the decision point, if the fluid is flowing well and there is plenty of room, the NS will close up the back of my head, and I'm off to recovery.  This results in the back of my head looking like a zipper, hence the zipperheads for chiari group on facebook that I mentioned earlier.
     If the fluid isn't flowing well, or there doesn't seem to be enough room inside the dura, further surgery is required.  For this portion, will then cut open the dura and create a larger patch to increase the size of the dura, thus giving the brain and spinal fluid more room to flow.  This results in a 5-7 day hospital stay and up to 8 weeks of recovery at home.  The reason everything is increased so dramatically is due to the increased risk of developing a spinal fluid leak.  Straining in any way, such as a cough, sneeze, etc can increase the risk of a fluid leak, so the NS would want me to stay at home and do as little as possible until the dura patch is squared away.  This too results in the zipper scar on the back of my head.
     As I said, I'm not sure which of these two surgeries will occur.  The NS will determine that once he has me opened up and is able to conduct the ultrasound on my brain itself.  We don't have a date set or anything like that yet, but once we have more information, I will be sure to create another post.