Raising awareness about a medical mystery
By KRYSTLE CHOW
Published in the Ottawa West edition of The News EMC.
Apr. 20, 2006
Kelda Whalen recalls a beautiful day in 1997 when she walked 10 blocks up Elgin Street.
“I was smiling at strangers,” she says. “It was the happiest I’d been in 15 years.”
That walk was the result of a temporarily successful operation on her brain - one of 12 to treat a disorder known as dystonia, which causes sufferers to constantly jerk and move involuntarily.
However, the surgery’s effects only lasted a few months before the deep brain stimulators implanted in her skull malfunctioned and had to be removed.
Ms. Whalen has had the condition since (more…)
