User:Operagirldia
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[edit] Dia DiCristino
Dia DiCristino is a mezzo-soprano. She was born and raised in Philadelphia. Dia attended the Girard Academic Music Program for vocal studies from 1994-1998, and later graduated from Immaculata University with a BA in Music and Theology and a minor in Biology.
In the year 2002, she was diagnosed with an arachnoid cyst on her occipital lobes of her brain. From this she developed hydrocephalus, and then later bacterial meningitis. DiCristino made the news because she had eleven brain surgeries in less then a year. She was featured in the 2003 article "High Notes, Low Notes" in Philadelphia News.Dia Josette DiCristino was born in 1980 just outside of Philadelphia, in a town called MEDIA. She is most notably famous for the eleven brain surgeries she had in 2003 at the University of Pennsylvania.
After her first surgery, she developed hydrocephalus. This caused her to be shunted in January 2003. After the second surgery her cyst had grown back extremely fast, and so the third surgery was performed to change the shunt valve. After this she got even worse and the hydro was so bad that she almost died on the operating table during the fourth surgery because the neurosurgeons couldn't fit a shunt in. Luckily they found a way, but unfortunately this meant Dia having two vp shunts, one in the cyst and another one in the fourth ventricle.
After two days being out of the hospital, Dia started to overdrain in one shunt and underdrain in another. This caused obvious confusion amongst the medical doctors. After another month in the hospital, she had another two surgeries. During the sixth surgery, she contracted bacterial meningitis creating much havoc , another long hospital stay, and two more surgeries.
Three months after the eighth brain surgery, Dia started to overdrain again, and so a ninth surgery was performed to shut the shunt off. Two weeks after this her fourth ventricle had gotten hydrocephalus again, and so a tenth surgery was carried out to give her a completely new shunt system.
An eleventh surgery was performed in early 2004 to give Dia a special shunt system. Because she had failed every adult shunt system availble in Philadelphia, the surgeons decided to give her a pediatric tube in the stomach and an adult reservoir in the brain.
There are many more interesting things about Dia Josette DiCristino, but nothing will ever top the eleven brain surgeries in such a short amount of time.
Dia is still dealing with serious medical issues that some doctors attribute to the cyst, while others think there is a seperate neurological illness present.
Dia is now residing in the UK with her cat Sarah. She is working as a graphic and website designer and has no plans as of now on getting back into opera. This is mainly because of health problems.
