@hckynutjohn wrote:
@sfnative wrote:
Hi dear friends and those who are stopping by today,
I've come back to ask for your positive thoughts and prayers, as I may have herniated yet another disk in my low back on Tuesday. Will be going to Urgent Care (well connected to Providence Hospital) in a few hours to get things rolling, as my internist just moved her practice, so is not available this week. If I had a spine ortho or neuro, I'd be there as soon as they could get me in, but have not established a relationship in that field yet here in Portland. Boy, do I miss all of my docs in La Jolla and San Diego!
I hope they order an MRI or at least make a STAT referral to a specialist so we can get that MRI done, as this is a bad one (herniation).
Wish me luck through the process and with sleep.
Thanks so much.
God Bless ~ Rebecca
Hi Rebecca,
Thank you so much for your concern about my wife and myself. No, I have not had my Endoscopy yet. My wife and I will both be going in on the same day to have procedures done.
She is having a both an Endoscopy and a Colonoscopy on the same day. She will be first with the Gastro Doctor and I will go second. The doctor wants to see how her bleeding ulcer is healing for her and also take a look at her right colon.
For me it is a follow up on an Endoscopy I had recently to make sure my Barrett's Esopagas is still in check. If not? Will wait and see where the doctor wants to go from there. Her mother lives only a couple blocks from the hospital so she will be driving us home. She is 90 years old but still drives well.
I am very sorry to hear about your spinal issues. As I've mentioned here several times, my spine is minus the L-5/S-1 and the L-3, so I know the pain issues associated with those particular discs. Mine fortunately(or unfortunately however one chooses to look at it)were completely ruptured so there was no option other that surgery of some type.
L-5/S-1 was via a BIG open surgery. The other, done by my friend the Spinal Specialist, was, at the time, an experimental procedure to remove the remnants of the ruptured L-3 disc. It was invasive, but only with some big syringes of some type.
He did this in his office giving me only local anesthesia. I laid on my stomach for the 2 hour procedure and watched on the monitor as he removed(or zapped) each partical floating around what I guess was my spinal canal. He told me at the time it was 40% effective. I went in with much pain and numbness, and 2+ hours later I walked out pain free.
I wish you had as easy access as I do to to a Spinal Surgeon. All I have to do is call him and he moves me into an appointment right away, even if he has to skip his lunch to do so. I sure wish you get that MRI, and soon and get some comfort along with being able to sleep.
Thank you so much for caring and now it is my turn to reciprocate for all the thoughts and prayers you have sent my way for my wife and myself.
Be well my friend,
JOhn
@hckynutjohn
John,
Thank you so much for sharing what's going on. Boy, Cindy's 2 diagnostics in one day - what a doozie! Bless her heart! I know that you both know that when it's gotta be done, it's just gotta be done. My husband is difficult in the extreme. I don't know what I'm going to do when something major happens to him. He won't even get a flu or shingles shot at present.
I sincerely hope and pray that the diagnostics you and Cindy have will come back negative or at least indicate that anatomically things are looking A-OK. You're so fortunate to have Cindy's mother close by and able to drive!
Boy, that surgery at L-3 with a local is astounding!!! Sounds as though you suffered from many floaters that could have done much damage to your spine. So glad you had such a great surgeon an outcome. My L5-S1 surgery was a cage fusion with rods and screws. First approach was from my lower left abdomen by a vascular surgeon who retracted vertebral vessels, while my spine doc worked on things, followed by the second approach in the lumbar spine. This was a work injury in which I totally blew the disk at L5-S1, so on film there was no disk at that level at all, just bone on bone (hence lots of nerve pain and weakness in the left leg). He placed a titanium cylinder with holes in it and filled with donor irradiated bone between L5 and S1, then performed a lamenotomy.
The reason I don't have a spine doc to go to immediately is that we re-located to another state when I retired 2 years ago. In doing so, I left all of my great docs behind at Scripps Torrey Pines in La Jolla, CA. Believe me, if I could afford to fly back and forth to my docs down there I would. (Now live in Portland, OR, where DD, SIL and 2 year old granddaughter live.)
Though my Internist very recently re-located to be closer to home because she doesn't like driving on the highway in snow (can't blame her), she has squeezed me in on Monday afternoon. Her RN called me this morning indicating my doc would order films on Monday and compare and contrast with films from a year ago and my MRI that I have from Scripps. She'll then get the ball rolling. Though she's now located out of town, I'm gladly following her to the new office, as she very proactive in the care of her patients, so know she won't sit on this.
John, thank you so much for your kind words, thoughts and prayers at this time. I'll be surprised if I don't end up in surgery. Though not a surgery junky, my body is "ortho bad" in the worst way and I've had over 10 ortho surgeries, all very much needed. If surgery is required, I hope it will be as non-invasive as possible.
(One of my ortho docs who performed the most comprehensive new patient exam I've ever had told me my joints are prone to extension beyond normal range, because I have, in layman's terms, "loose ligaments." This is a hereditary condition in which ligaments, which connect bone-to-bone, stretch more than they are supposed to. Over years of use and over-use, joints slowly experience low level trauma. Add all of that up and eventually you can develop joint issues. That's me. When my daughter was born with bilateral dysplasia of the hips, she had to be evalated by an ortho doc when she was 5 days old. He asked my husband and I to hold our hands out in a straight line. Then taking the right hand, place it under the fingers of the left hand and see how far up you can raise those fingers. The doc demontrated. He raised his fingers a little bit. My husband raised his fingers a little bit. I raised by left hand fingers to 90 degrees. "OK," said the ortho doc, "you got the gene and I'm going to assume your daughter did, too." What he meant was that I had inherited that hypermobility gene that makes my ligaments stretch more than they should. He asked if I had ever had any fractures and I said "No." Then he asked if I had had at least a moderate number of sprains and I asked him "How did you know that?" LOL! Well, it seems if you have "loose ligments" you'll be more prone to sprains than fractures. The outcome of this was that our daughter had to wear a "hip splint" for a year, 24/7. This set the head of the developing femur into the acetabulum (really shallow socket in babies) so that by the age of one year both hip joints would be normal for her age. That was a good call on his part, as everything grew as expected, but she cannot do any sport that is high impact.)
Give your family lots of pets and strokes for me.
May you be blessed with a wonderful weekend, my friend. ~Rebecca
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