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Facts: Shirley Mewharter, retired, used to work in an office filing documents, 66 years old.

The symptoms, how it all started
Shirley Mewharter experienced her first symptoms of Essential Tremor Syndrome seven years ago when she developed a simple twitch in her left thumb. Eventually, the tremors spread through her left arm, into her right arm and she began feeling them in her legs. The shaking became more intense as time passed and interfered with Shirley's abilities to perform regular day-to-day tasks like talking on the phone, playing with her grandchildren and even drinking water from a glass.

After three years of coping with the tremors on her own, Shirley visited a neurologist and was diagnosed with Essential Tremor Syndrome. Doctors told her that medications could help treat her symptoms, but Shirley refused to take any pills, knowing that the heavy collateral effects would be damaging. She thought to herself, many times, that this was how she was going to have to live for the rest of her life. She was lucky that her daughter worked at Northwest Hospital and was able to tell her all about the Gamma Knife Center. Shirley felt that she had found a way to take back her life.

Things we take for granted
"Tremors can impact your life in ways you never imagined," Shirley explains. "They affect all the little things that you do - the things that you take for granted.” Simple things, like tying your shoe laces, drinking water from a glass, even writing a letter, and buttoning a shirt, were no longer easy tasks. Shirley could take several minutes getting dressed, spill water all over herself when drinking from a glass, or constantly bang the phone against her head during a phone call. Even eating was challenging, as she couldn’t hold a spoon straight into her mouth. She felt helpless and incapacitated, and her frustration increased when she realized she couldn’t carry her one year old great-grandson in her arms, in fear of dropping him.

The procedure
Shirley's daughter, a Northwest Hospital employee, recommended that she schedule an appointment at the Gamma Knife Center, where the safe, non-invasive Gamma Knife radiosurgery procedure was introduced to the Pacific Northwest in 1993.

Shortly after meeting with Dr. Ronald Young, M.D., Neurosurgeon and Medical Director of the Gamma Knife Center at Northwest Hospital in January 2004, Shirley received Gamma Knife radiosurgery on the right side of her brain, to treat the tremors on the left side of her body.

In cases of Essential Tremor, the Gamma Knife treatment specifically targets the thalamus, the area of the brain that causes tremors, Dr. Young explains. The precision of the Gamma Knife keeps the normal brain tissue around the thalamus safe, so that side effects from the treatment are rare and most often temporary. Since the procedure is non-invasive, or "bloodless," the risks of post-operative complications, such as infection and hemorrhage, are eliminated.

Like most patients who receive the Gamma Knife treatment, following the procedure Shirley remained at Northwest Hospital overnight for observation, but returned home and got back to her daily routine in just 24 hours.

Getting back to life as usual
"I experienced no pain or discomfort at all, I felt as good as I would have if I hadn't had the procedure done at all," Shirley says.

Shirley says the tremors on the left side of her body began to diminish three months after she had the procedure and were more than 90 percent gone after six months and she feels she is back to enjoying life as usual.

"At the time I had the procedure I couldn't even tell that anything had been done, but now it's changed my way of life quite a bit," says Shirley, noting that she is now able to baby-sit for her 15-month-old great-grandson, Jared, one day a week. Prior to the procedure, there were times when it wasn't safe for her to hold him at all because her tremors were so severe. "I wasn't expecting it to have this much of an impact - it was great. I would highly recommend the Gamma Knife to anyone suffering from Essential Tremor. For me, the results were tremendous."
Shirley's response to the treatment was so incredible, in fact, that she says she made an appointment to have Dr. Young perform the procedure on the left side of her brain in the Spring of 2005.

While some Essential Tremor patients only have the procedure performed to treat the side of the body where the tremor is most severe, some patients, such as Shirley, may have it performed on both sides. However, it is required that patients wait one year between procedures to ensure that the initial procedure was successful and that it is safe to perform it again.