If you are lucky, life’s journey will bless you with a select group of friends that are more like family. They are your village, your tribe walking beside you through the good and bad, loving your children as their own. Life would just not be the same without them. My friend, Jamie Root, has been diagnosed with a life threatening condition that will require major brain surgery.

After two years of ER visits, doctors, X-rays and MRIs searching for answers, they found a Chiari malformation causing a syrinx on her spinal cord and she was diagnosed with syringomyelia and syringobullbia. This condition is fatal if not corrected, and she is already experiencing the fast progression of this condition as she now has scoliosis; degenerating discs; numbness and tingling of her face, arm, and leg; severe migraines and increasing pain every day. As if this wasn’t enough, they found a blocked bile duct causing her severe abdominal pain.

On October 16th, 2025 she will have laparoscopic surgery removing all gall stones and unblocking the bile duct at Augusta Health. On November 14th, 2025 she will have brain surgery at UVA and will have an estimated 12 week recovery.

From a manager at Food Lion, a wife, a mom and stepmom, a sister, a friend to an acquaintance, Jamie Root has touched our lives in one way or another. I ask that we all come together as a community to help her family through this rough time and bless her as she has blessed our lives.