Fri #1

First and more importantly, I want to thank those bloggy friends who have emailed me and asked what happened on Wednesday.  Bless you for your kindness !!!  I was planning on blogging about this  "personal journal" item that I created to help me travel down this road.  It is so overwhelming to me that my "new bloggy friends care so much" and are following this blog segment since it isn't "book" related.  Again...THANK YOU...there are no words to describe what and how your kindness and genuine caring means to me (so sorry...but am tearing up right now...been doing that a lot since Wednesday).  There will be 2 posts again today.  After I post about this very difficult decision that I am facing (worse than I thought), I will be doing what I enjoy most and that are the daily memes that I have joined and gives me the chance to find more great blogs and meet more nice people.  I will try to be as brief as I can with all the info I had to process.......so here goes:
MY JOURNEY
On Wednesday I traveled to Boston for a consult (I was lucky to be seen) as this doc sees patients from the entire U.S. and performs surgery on patients with complicated cases, which I fall under.  He is the 5th doc I have seen over the past few months (being a RN and knowing certain facts, I did not feel comfortable with what the previous 4 said).  I liked him from the minute he walked into the room, introduced himself, and said give me a sec to look at the films, which I have a library of and like my book, go everywhere with me.  However, the news went from good, bad, and absolutely terrifying.  After looking at all the films (CTscan, myelogram,x-rays). His next words were "the good news is I can help you" (thinking...so there is a possible light at the end of this tunnel but it wouldn't be for another 2-3 months...that's his surgical schedule).  His next sentence was "looking at you sitting here and then looking at these films, I would never believe the 2 go together.  You have very severe problems (ok....Oh God...its worse than I thought).  He then explained what needs to be done and stated a hospital stay of approx 5 days (thinking...5 days without reading my emails and blogging...my inbox will be overloaded and no blogging...oh no..wonder if I can bring my laptop....there are priorities in life lol) He also told me that if I didn't have surgery, my symptoms will be spiraling downward at a rapid rate due to what he sees on the films(ok..not good...can't imagine it getting any worse than it is now)  And then it hit me...what he just explained about what he would do if I chose surgery.  The 1st day he will be making a 5-6" abdominal incision to get at the front of my spine and injecting a protein gel that would create a false disc (for 5 levels) as there is no disc now, just bone on bone, vertebrae on vertebrae (forgot to ask the length of time I would be under anesthesia for this procedure..CRS moment), the next day...back on the OR table (did ask and was told at least 4 hrs and a large incision down my back due to where the damage is) removing the old hardware, try to remove some of the arthritis and scar tissue from last 3 operations, and placing a new rod and screws to the entire area of the lumbar spine.  So there it all is....a very big decision.  My brain is overloaded with all this but have put it in God's hands...he will help me decide what to do.  And once I know...you will know.....and again thank you for caring.......to be continued.........