A shiver came down her back, as sophomore Katlyn Sutton was sitting in the doctor’s office. Sitting and waiting. As the doctor enters the room, she gasps for air. She can tell by the stern look on his face, that the lab test results are just the beginning.

“(At) first, they didn’t tell me what was wrong,” Sutton said. “When the doctors said it might be a brain tumor, I panicked because I wasn’t sure what was going on.”

Earlier this spring, she was diagnosed with a Chiari malformation, which is a structural defect in the back of the brain that grows downward into the spinal cord and can cause various health issues.

“I had heart palpitations,” she said. “I would get a numb feeling in my arms and legs, and I suffered from nausea.”

Sutton kept the odd symptoms a secret from longtime friend sophomore Victoria Sanchez.

“At first I didn’t believe her,” Sanchez said. “I thought she was just over thinking it.”

The surgery took place one week before school started.

“I was worried that she would die, or something would get messed up and she would end up being paralyzed,” Sanchez said.

Sutton missed most of the first six weeks to recover from the surgery.

“I’m very behind on my school work,” she said.

She said her teachers have been very helpful.

“I’m having to attend a lot of tutoring,” she said. “While the class is learning something new, the teacher is teaching me something we learned a few weeks ago.”

Although Sutton has returned to school, there are still a lot of things she can’t do.

“I can’t lift anything or go up and down the stairs,” she said.

Sutton was offered the opportunity to be a part of the Homebound program, which would have allowed her to work on school work from the comfort of her house.

“I did consider being on the program,” she said. “However, I decided against it because I had already started school when I had found out about it.”

Her home life has been altered too.

“My family has had to be more cautious of what they do,” she said. “Family outings have changed and can’t be to amusement parks and things like that.”

She hopes to take on more of a role in band.

“I would like to march next year and get out of pit,” Sutton said. “I was playing the French horn but I was moved because of the surgery. I play the synthesizer now.”

Sutton said she is still trying to adjust to being back at school.

“The school bus is really bumpy; it’s hard on my neck,” she said. “(I try to) be cautious of others because it helps not being crowded in the halls.”

Her counselor Lisa Davis said her speedy recovery is amazing.

“Katlyn has been very brave to return to school so quickly,” Davis said. “I know that recovering from surgery and trying to keep up with rigorous course work is very challenging.”

Davis said she does her best to work with Katlyn.

“She knows she has to continue to push herself no matter what because she wants to be successful and help others in tough situations,” Davis said.

Even though she has returned to school, she is still absent some.

“So far it’s (the recovery) been really rough,” she said. “I still deal with a lot of headaches, but I expect to be better in another month or two.”

Despite her struggles, she is focused on making progress in her recovery.

“I just wake up in the morning and force myself to go to school,” Sutton said. “I think that it has to do with wanting to do things that I would normally do.”