MRI Report

I had my MRI yesterday on my brain and my neck. I have been in so much pain lately and I just needed to find out what the heck is wrong with me. I expected to have to wait a day or so for the results and was quite surprised when I was contacted only about two hours after my MRI by my doctor's office to give me my results. You know that it isn't good news when that happens. When the girl at my doctor's office called me and read me what the report said, I uttered an expletive and then said, "That sounds really bad!" She told me that was why they are sending me to a neurosurgeon right away. To put it in a nutshell, I have some really messed up discs in my neck that are herniated, one has a large extruded fragment measuring 10mm by 9mm and is causing compression on my spinal cord. At least that is what I am able to understand from the report. I will know more once I go to the neurosurgeon on Friday afternoon. I do know this, it is apparently bad enough that my doctor's office even called me early this morning to ask me how I was feeling and if I was doing okay.

Here is the good news in all of this, though. My brain is normal!!! And I also don't have any kind of tumor that is causing this compression on my spine. I can admit to this now, but I was so fearful that they would find that I had some kind of tumor or something equally as bad that was causing the pressure on my spine. So, even though I am in this constant and debilitating pain, I am so very relieved to know that it isn't being caused from a tumor!!!!

What I don't understand is what could have possibly caused this. I am still so young. My birthday is tomorrow and I am only turning 36. While I feel like I am getting so old, I know that that is young (all things considered). I have a long time to go in this body. I wonder if this could be an old injury from our really bad car accident that happened several years ago when we had that head on collision at 70mph on the interstate. I was the only one in the car that suffered any real injuries at the time and they still were minor. Could it be possible that this is an old whiplash injury from back then that is just now showing itself? I have really done nothing else that would have been of an injuring nature except for ride a few mild roller coasters this summer from our vacation. Maybe I suffered the injuries then? I will probably never know.

And then to add insult to injury, the kids had to be picked up early from the church after school program yesterday because Emily was having a really bad headache. It turned out to be one of her really bad shunt headaches. And when I say bad...I mean B...A...D!!!!! It was like the ones that she used to have before her brain surgeries she had this summer. She was vomiting and went lethargic. After about an hour and a half, she woke up feeling great and had recovered. The pressure was gone and she ate a good dinner.

Today I got a call from Emily's endocrinologist's office to schedule that big test for her pituitary gland function test (can't remember the name of the test right now). It is scheduled for Nov 10 at 8:30am. Of course, that is subject to change depending on what is going on with me and my situation. But for right now, that is when it is scheduled.

And finally, on a positive note, Rob has had a few job interviews lately that have gone well. Although we have all of this other stuff going on right now, we are hopeful that something positive will happen with one of those. Please continue to keep our family in your prayers.