Inside out

Thursday I FINALLY had my meeting with the Orthopedist to look at the MRI I had 2-1/2 weeks prior. My regular ortho was on paternity leave so I saw his "back-up". Let me tell you, by the time I left that place, I was ready to kick someone in the balls.

My appt. was for 2:30 but I got there a little early (my friend had a dental appt at 2:00 & I dropped her off there first & then went to the ortho). The receptionist called me into the exam room at 2:45 & said the dr. would be with me in just a few minutes.

45 minutes later, not a single sole had come into that little room. For all they knew, I could've had a heart attack or seizure & died. I was pissed.

Meanwhile, my friend who was having her wisdom teeth taken out across town was done & was waiting for me to pick her up. I finally walked out of the exam room, went up to the receptionist & said "Exuse me! But just how much longer am I expected to wait?" She apologized & said the dr. would be with me in just a few minutes.

"That's what you said 45 minutes ago!"

15 minutes later, the dr. FINALLY showed up. He says hello & then says "so I see you're having some back problems. Do you think you might want to have an MRI?"

I give him a stare of disbelief & angrily say "I already HAD one. That's why I'm here!"

"Oh! Well, that makes sense."

So he hops on the computer & pulls up my MRI & starts looking at it, rotating the image of my spine (which looked pretty damn cool, by the way) left & right, up & down, & just said "hmmmm... mmmm-hmmmm... oooo.... Whoa! Well that's not good."

It's about this time that I was ready to kick him in the balls.

He finally began to explain to me what he was seeing. The 1st image was a full length view of my spine, from head to tail bone. You could very clearly the 3 disks that had blown out. This image I found on google shows normal disks & a herniated disk (I hope that link works). My MRI looked a lot like the one on the right, except add 2 more herniated disks on top of the one seen in that pic & my disks go out much further into the white are (spinal canal) where all the nerves are & all those nerves are being pinched like crazy. The worst disk is the bottom one. He also showed me a cross-section view (kinda like I'd been sliced in 1/2 with a meat slicer) that showed each individual vertebrae & you could plainly see the blown out disk material completely pressing on all the nerves. It did not look pretty.

The dr. told me to keep up w/ my physical therapy & gave me 2 new prescriptions: Mobic & Neurontin. Mobic is an anti-inflammatory & Neurontin is to help with the nerve pain. Apparently it was originally put on the market as an anti-seizure medicine, but was found to help people with nerve pain. Unfortunately it makes me you very sleepy so I kinda have to develop a tolerance for it. We'll see how it goes.

In the mean time, I'm feeling better today than yesterday (I had one of those 2 steps forward, 3 steps back kinda days) & can sit for longer periods of time. OH! And I can walk & turn my head at the same time. YIPPEE!!! However I can't walk very fast & do that at the same time. But ya know... baby steps.