IONIA, Mich. -- Sitting at a table working on math with his peers Tuesday, Hunter Dennis is back in kindergarten after successful brain surgery.
His is a comeback story since FOX 17 first shared his rare brain condition in 2014: at two-years-old, Dennis was diagnosed with Chiari Malformation, where the brain is slightly larger than the skull. For the last three years, his mother Katie Dennis says her son suffered seizures, pain in his arms, legs and stomach, and loss of vision.
Then in September, she says things got worse and her son was unable to go to school.
"He was hardly walking, we were carrying him from room to room; it was awful seeing him go through that," Dennis said Tuesday.
In November, Dennis underwent brain surgery and his pediatric neurosurgeon tells FOX 17 it went as well as it possibly could, eradicating his condition.
"He did fantastic, he's a different kid," said Dr. Kaveh Asadi, a pediatric neurosurgeon with Helen DeVos Children's Hospital who performed Dennis' surgery.
"He’s literally a different kid, from his eating, drinking, playing, jumping, running--the surgery is so gratifying."
Dennis' mother says her son's symptoms disappeared almost immediately. He returned to Rather Elementary School in Ionia in February.
"What the doctor has done for him, we can’t thank him enough for it," said Dennis. "We never knew that this day would come."
"He’s happy. When he got sick in the fall he wasn’t the same little boy anymore, it was like we didn’t even know him. And now he’s back to his old self."
Dennis volunteers in her son's classroom every day during his transition back, and says she's grateful to see her son grow. Like her son told FOX 17, he can "get through anything."
