Surgery and a cute layout.

Well I went with Gerald yesterday to see his Neuro-Surgeon. Good and bad news, but much better than we were thinking. We've tried everything from cortisone shots into the disks (ouch), physical therapy, seeing a physiatrist, Taking every combination of painkiller and anti-inflamitory known to man and Gerald continues to get worse, not better. I was wanting straight forward answers about the surgical procedure, how long, length of recovery etc, and he couldn't give us the details. I can understand why, because at this point all the Dr knows from the MRI's is there is buldging and problems, but doesn't know how many nerves are involved. So he needs to get another Mylogram. He had one over a year ago on his low back, It is done as outpatient in the day surgery section. They are going to inject him with radio-reactive dye, and then tip the bed up at a 45 degree angle so it runs to his head and neck. They will then do a PET/CT scan. The radio reactive dye makes it so they can see which nerves are having troubles and which ones are ok. From there the Dr says we come straight back upstairs to his office to look over the results. As he will have them in his office withing minutes after the procedure. Oh the miracle of digital Imaging. Gerald last MRI was digital, and TJ's chest X-ray when he was 1 and got Pneumonia was digital. The hospital is very high tech. So after the mylogram we will know which way the Dr will operate on Gerald neck. If only the nerves around one disk are involved they will operate from the back of the neck. They will remove the disk. Widen the canals in the vertebrae with a specialized drill, and then insert a piece of "bone" where they get bone or faux bone from I don't know. I didn't ask. I will next appointment. The bone is a spacer essentially where the disk was. Over time it will heal itself to the upper and lower vertabrae around it and fuse the whole section together. Now if more than one set of nerves is having issues because of the disks they will not operate from the back. The reasoning is they have to remove the disk to get to the nerves/nerve canal which means multiple fusions and that means severe loss of mobility in the head and neck. Dr said think Frankenstein here. So in that case they operate from the front of the neck. Operating from the front is a lot more dangerous and has a lot more risks, but on the upside because they are going in from the front they don't have to remove the disks and fuse them and such so the healing and recooperation time is much shorter. He will come home in a soft cervical collar. and depending on pain tolerance can even go back to work part time and on light duty about 2-3 weeks after the surgery. In this procedure they carefully slice open the front of the neck and through the muscles in the neck, peel them all away to get to the bone, and then drill out the nerve canals much wider. The discs will still be angry and swollen in his neck, but there shouldn't be the pain and all the numbness in his arms from the pinched nerves since they will have more room with the canals drilled bigger. They stitch everything up and done. Like I said the recovery is really quick compared to the other. We were just so afraid that he was going to have a long and painful recovery from a surgery that didn't really work like in Gerald's lower back. He had 2 surgeries there about 10 years ago and the last surgery when the disk ruptured he was laid up for 6 months. The Dr said they have better technology and procedures now, and also back surgeries always lake longer to heal because the back is in your core, you use it and abuse it even when you don't mean to. So naturally it just takes longer. if they operate from the back it can still be 8-12 weeks before he is feeling better because the bone has to heal and he will be in a lot more pain. So for the time being we are waiting for his insurance to approve the Mylogram which could take up to 2 weeks, and then we can schedule the Mylogram with radiology, which is usually about 2 weeks behind. So we are guessing that mid December he will get his Mylogram and then we can get the specifics and make a plan about the surgery, which again requires approval from the insurance (2 weeks there) before the surgery can be scheduled. I'll keep everyone updated. With all that said here is a cute LO of TJ's second bithday. I was having such a hard time with his birthday photos because I just didn't feel inspired to scrap them. Until I saw this adorable template from Nina. It was given away at this weeks birthday chat for Tania at NDISB. I altered the temp a bit, but this is the finished product. Papers are by Michelle Coleman at Scrap Artist.