Karla Dirks enjoying the company of her family

Karla Dirks was looking forward to a great road trip to St. Louis with her sister, but it ended with an injury followed by more bad news.

While attending a Cardinals’ playoff game in 2011, Karla fell and hit the back of her head on a concrete step while returning to her seat following the seventh-inning stretch.

A follow-up CT scan revealed a brain tumor – news that left her scared and surprised since she hadn’t experienced any symptoms to hint that something was wrong. The tumor was a meningioma, which grows from the membranes that surround the brain and spinal cord. Somewhat easing her concerns, she learned that these tumors were slow growing and often not malignant.

Her doctor referred her to Brian Russell, MD, a Springfield Clinic neurosurgeon, who explained that she had three options: brain surgery followed by two to three months off work to recuperate; do nothing and keep an eye on the tumor; or an outpatient procedure called stereotactic radiosurgery that would not require an incision. Read the rest of this entry »

Paige Ballinger is glad to be feeling good.

Paige Ballinger had always been in good health. She had never been in the hospital for anything major in her nearly 50 years.  What the Springfield woman didn’t know was that ever since birth she had the equivalent of a time bomb in her head waiting to go off.A set of cells, which normally would be associated with the respiratory tract, had formed and gotten closed off in the space with the brain and the brain stem. And they stayed there quietly for decades before ever causing a problem.The trouble started on a Thursday morning when she woke up with a stiff neck. At first, Paige thought she had slept on it the wrong way. But when she moved her neck, “it just shot a pain up near my head,”she said.

“It was definitely a 10.”

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 The first pipeline stent procedure, which offers an alternative to open brain surgery for patients with large aneurysms, in the region was performed in December at Memorial Medical Center.

Augusto Elias, DDS, MD, a neurointerventional radiologist with Clinical Radiologists, S.C., who leads the neurointerventional team in Memorial Medical Center’s Stroke Center, performed the minimally invasive procedure, known as a pipeline stent. Dr. Elias is one of only 10 physicians in Illinois who is trained to perform this procedure. Read the rest of this entry »

Memorial Medical Center's Neurointerventional Radiology Suite

When a loved one suffers from a stroke, you know every second counts. The work of a neurointerventional radiologist could save time and lessen the chances of permanent brain damage.

Neurointerventional radiology uses minimally invasive technologies – microcatheters, balloons and stents – to diagnose and treat strokes as well as aneurysms, blood clots and tumors.

The most common type of stroke, known as an ischemic stroke, occurs because a blood clot becomes lodged in a blood vessel supplying blood to the brain. This is the type of stroke that U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois suffered in January.

One way to treat these strokes is through the use of a clot-busting drug. But this drug takes time to be effective. The larger the clot, the longer the time for the drug to take effect. Read the rest of this entry »

Memorial Medical Center’s Regional Cancer Center has two top-of-the-line Varian TrueBeam linear accelerators to use during a patient’s radiation therapy.

Once treated through surgery, some brain tumors are now treated as an outpatient procedure – and without a single incision – using a linear accelerator.

Stereotactic radiosurgery, also known as bloodless brain surgery, “is a form of radiation therapy that can control and decrease the size of tumors without putting the patient through the risk involved with a standard open operation,” explained Brian Russell, MD, a neurosurgeon with Springfield Clinic during an interview with Bob Murray on radio station WTAX.

Memorial Medical Center’s Regional Cancer Center is one of only a few facilities in the nation to have two top-of-the-line Varian TrueBeam linear accelerators. These state-of-the-art machines shape the beams used for radiation therapy to treat cancer or to prevent additional tumor growth. Read the rest of this entry »

You’ve heard the terms – MRI, CT scan, and X-ray. Chances are you know these are imaging scans used to evaluate and diagnose patients. But do you know how and why they’re used?

Medical imaging has become a huge part of patient care, in both hospital and clinic settings. Whether it’s a bone fracture, heart complication or lump in the breast, your physician now depends on this technology for diagnosis and treatment.

Multiple types of imaging scans are used each day and understanding the difference can be confusing. Kurt Brauer, BS, RT (R) (MR), Inpatient Imaging manager at Memorial Medical Center, breaks down the major technologies below so you’ll better understand what’s involved the next time your doctor recommends a scan. Read the rest of this entry »

You can feel it coming on. Light hurts your eyes. Whispers grate on your ears. The pounding in your head reminds you of a construction zone.

Yep. It’s a migraine. And according to Benjamin Montgomery, MD, with Memorial Physician Services in Jacksonville, it can last anywhere from two to 72 hours.

“The pain is usually concentrated on one side of the head and is often accompanied by nausea and vomiting,” Dr. Montgomery said. “It makes you basically miserable.”

About 6 percent of men and 18 percent of women will get a migraine this year. Although it affects every age, middle-aged women are the most likely to suffer from the headaches. Read the rest of this entry »

U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk’s ischemic stroke, which affected the right side of his brain on Saturday, has brought a lot of attention to this serious affliction that strikes nearly 800,000 people each year.

Ischemic strokes occur when blood vessels to the brain become narrowed or clogged, preventing or slowing blood flow to the brain. The left side of the brain controls the right side of the body and vice-versa. Therefore, a stroke to the right side of the brain can cause deficits – weakness or paralysis on the left side of the body, as appears to be the case for Sen. Kirk.

Do you know the signs and symptoms of stroke? Spotting a stroke is the first step toward stopping it.

FAST — the Face, Arm and Speech Test — is an easy way to quickly identify the early warning signs of a stroke. If you identify problems while giving this simple test, call 911 and seek medical help immediately. The time you save could save your life or the life of someone you love. Read the rest of this entry »

It was just another all-Saturday wrestling tournament. Jeff Wilson was there to watch his oldest child, Phillip, a junior at Springfield High School, compete. Looking back at that day, Jeff doesn’t recall anything out of the ordinary.

He took Phillip home, and his son slept all night. And the next day. And the next. They had to rouse him to get him to eat.

His parents thought it was exhaustion or maybe a touch of the flu. Phillip felt better on Tuesday but started having headaches at school. He talked to Karen Gregory, a SportsCare athletic trainer based at Springfield High, about it. She called Jeff and suggested his son be evaluated for a concussion. Read the rest of this entry »