What a week! And I’m going to say what a shitty week! Last Wednesday, food shelf day, me and the other helpers weren’t sure that we would even get a delivery since our service coordinator was fired last Friday. Several of us showed up and the truck showed up and provided us with some nice groceries. And now, Cindy and I are going to coordinate until they get a replacement coordinator hired. The management here, especially at Building 2, are so unhelpful and unfriendly that they have made the tone a bit uncomfortable. People are gathering, writing letters to corporate, and complaining amongst themselves and it really hasn’t been too pleasant. I just try to stay out of it.
Things turned really sour when I came in from my early morning walk with Joey on Thursday morning and felt a warm, flush, numby feeling from the waist down that only lasted a minute or so. I thought it was strange, but set about my day and headed off to clean Cassie and Tommy’s house. As I was getting organized, another similar feeling struck and I sat down and waited for it to dissipate. And those sensations came back off and on for the next 24 hours, more frequently through the night. So I called my doctor and was told to head for the ER. Leslie gave me a ride to Methodist hospital where I was checked in and tested.
They started with blood work, then I had a CT scan that showed no signs of any blockage or stroke or any related issue like that, my heart is working good and there is no cancer or tumors. Since the symptoms continued, I spent the night and had an MRI the next morning. Bingo! Found it! The MRI showed stenosis (narrowing of the space between backbones), putting pressure on the spinal cord and nerves that travel through the spine.) at the C5, C6 and C7 levels of the spine and surgery is suggested to put spacers in the spine to relieve the pressure. I was released, Ben brought me back home and I am reading up on what all of the options are. I will be scheduling appointments with the surgeons this week, getting a second opinion and seeing if there are any other treatment other than surgery, but it kind of sounds like surgery might be the only option as it can cause paralysis. I'm definitely shook up, as it means a 3-month recovery and is a painful procedure. I'm going to gather all the information I can to make a wise decision and my sons are good at asking the questions that I don't come up with.
The episodes continue occurring every 1-2 hours, don’t last long, are not painful or harmful (unless they get worse) and I feel ok in between other than not getting much sleep and the effects of antibiotics.
Mike and I sure had a couple of good sons - Ben was with me most of time and he kept Pat informed and Pat is willing to head this way if needed. They are both very sensible and will be here for me through whatever comes about.
