Sletager Overcomes Spinal Condition

Sandpoint High volleyball player Jenny Sletager has had scoliosis curvature of the spine since it was detected in eighth grade.

Her father made an appointment for her to be re-examined last winter because she wasn’t showing any improvement.

She was diagnosed with syringomyelia - a malformation where the brain sits low in the skull and blocks fluid from being reabsorbed from the spinal column in the base of the skull.

Surgery was performed March 30. Doctors made an 8-inch incision at the base of the skull, cut off two pieces of the skull, shaved off a piece of a vertebra and took a skin graft from her leg to push the brain up to allow the fluid to be reabsorbed.

The doctor told the Sletagers that if a room full of physicians were shown Jenny’s MRI without seeing her, they’d assume she was in a wheelchair, her father said.

“Indications so far is the surgery worked,” her father, Ralph, said. “We looked it up on the Internet. There aren’t many cases around. It’s something that’ll have to be monitored forever.”

Jenny, a senior, was cleared to play volleyball. She has split time at right-side hitter with two other players.

She dug up a ball that crawled over the net for the next-to-last point in Sandpoint’s 15-8, 15-5 win over Coeur d’Alene last week in the A-1 Region I title match.

She’s grateful to be able to play.

“I never thought it was very serious,” Jenny said. “It’s limited the range of motion in my neck. It’s really hard to look up. I have to watch quick movements with my neck. I still protect it a lot.”