Overcoming the odds: Kerrie Rogers’ story

MARQUETTE, Mich. (WJMN) – Kerrie Rogers is a typical 24-year-old woman. She loves reading, spending time with her family, and she just graduated with her bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Northern Michigan University. But getting to where she is today has been a journey full of challenges, which started when she was just a young girl.

“For me was the first sign was dizzy spells,” said Kerrie. “I remember particularly going to like. So, show events and trying to play with their kids and having to stop because I felt so strange and not long after that I started like having problems with looking at certain pictures and using certain filters with photo editing software, even listening to certain music made me feel sick.”

After first being diagnosed by doctors with vertigo and excess stomach acid, Kerrie says she had a gut feeling that it was more than just that.

“After that, I think I was a little bit going through a little bit of self-denial where I knew something was wrong, but I just kind of was too scared to think of it.”

As her symptoms continued to worsen, particularly with her vision, Kerrie’s mom took her to an ophthalmologist.

“And the eye doctor I’d gotten pretty used to the eye doctor’s appointments because I had the weaker eye muscles from when I was little,” said Kerrie. So, I kind of didn’t really think they’d find anything that wasn’t related to that. I just thought maybe I’d need a stronger prescription or something. But the eye doctor I saw said that they wanted another eye doctor’s opinion and that eye doctor had like an eye test on my eyes to check my eye pressures and noticed that they were way too high.”

Kerrie was then sent to have an MRI test done.

“When they did the MRI, I expected they’d come back and say, ‘we’ll get back to you in a couple of days.’ Instead, the neurosurgeon said, you need to get down. Are you going to Green Bay? Are you going to Ann Arbor? And I’m thinking, what on earth? And he said she needs to have brain surgery. There is a tumor pressing on her optic nerves and it’s really big,” explained Kerrie’s mom, Kelly.

“I kind of was just in a really bad place, feeling very helpless and just really, I guess, in a state of shock, I felt like everything I was seeing was kind of like the last time I’d be seeing it,” Kerrie expressed.

Kerrie underwent a 14-hour brain surgery at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor.

“It went fine. The surgeon got everything and said that it wasn’t cancerous, and so I kind of think my parents thought I was out of the woods with that. And I remember making like waking up after surgery and everything was fine. I just was really tired.”

Prior to the surgery, Kerrie’s parents were made aware of a possible complication following the surgery called cerebellar mutism syndrome. This was due to the fact that Kerrie’s tumor was embedded in the cerebellum and in the brainstem

“And for a week everything was good. And then all of a sudden, cerebellar mutism set in and it stripped her of everything,” said Kelly.

According to St. Jude Children’s Hospital , posterior fossa syndrome, also called cerebellar mutism syndrome, sometimes develops after surgery to remove a brain tumor in the posterior fossa. Postoperative cerebellar mutism syndrome ranges from 7 percent to 50 percent of children after posterior fossa surgery Children may have problems with communication, motor skills, and mood.

“She couldn’t do anything on her own, which was a really, really scary thing to see,” said Kelly. “As a parent, you don’t know what the future holds for your child now, and because the condition isn’t well known, you can’t be prepared well, it’s a day-by-day experience and hoping and praying that things will get better and that she’ll come out on the other side.”

Over the next several months, Kerrie went through occupational, physical, and speech therapies at the hospital.

“I really focused a lot like the physical therapy was mostly trying to get me to move around, even just set up that point and then the one I remember most vividly is my time and speech therapy. And remember a lot of that was around getting me to talk again and getting me to swallow like hard food.”

When Kerrie returned home following her surgery, she spent years of her life in therapy relearning these skills she once had. And to this day, Kerrie still has lingering side effects from the surgery she had when she was 14.

“Right now, the biggest thing for me is balance. So, I don’t have to use the walker all the time. I really hope to eventually get to where I can and then hopefully nothing at all, ideally. But it’s the balance that’s still the problem. And then I think probably my speech and then when I when I had my surgery, half of my face like stopped working. So, there’s still lingering things about that. I was like my smile was a little bit crooked and stuff, which I hope eventually resolves itself.”

Despite these challenges, Kerrie has never allowed them to stop her from going to college and chasing her dreams. Kerrie will begin her master’s degree in social work at NMU in the fall. She continues to be a disabilities advocate and is part of the group “Diversity in Disability” on campus.

“Feeling so grateful that she is determined, and she is a fighter? Because I can see myself in that situation,” Kelly expressed. “I don’t know if I could have been a strong to get to where she’s gotten to her ambitions, to graduate from college, to graduate from high school, college and looking into the future and such a bright future. And I just admire I just feel like we were blessed by her.”

“A quote that I really love is that there is ‘no greater disability in society than the inability to see a person as more.’,” added Kerrie.

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