What the neurosurgeon had to say today

Who is he? He once was a thief. Click. Click. He locked the owner of the establishment out, and began to partake of the goods there.

Tap. Tap. The owner, who had gone outside without a coat on, only to bring in the mail kept tapping on the door for him to let him in.

It was a blinding snow storm, and the co-owner was trapped in the snow storm in downtown Chicago, unable to return to the residence. He, the neurosurgeon, had been told the goods could not be consumed until the co-owner returned. Nothing, however, stopped him.

It continued. Tap. Tap. Bite. Bite.

Once finished, he unlocked the door, and then he got it! Spat. Spat. Right on his four year old little bottom by his grandmother for eating all the cookies she had baked for them *all* to be shared when his grandfather returned home from downtown where he had been snowed in! To this day he is not sorry, for he claims they were so good, they were worth every spat he got for them!

Today, Dr. Campbell told me I have a large herniated, or ruptured, Lumbar 2 Disc. What do you think? Sounds like he might be can be trusted with the truth, just not with any cookies laying around that he might want to partake.

All joking aside, Jim and I were very impressed with his bedside manner, especially over something that will require surgery of this magnitude, and with all the risks involved due to my age, and multiple physical risks, primarily my MG. He is very well versed, and practiced with MG, the importance of the anesthesia, and the close communication with the anesthesiologist well before the surgery, and close attention to the chemical agent to put me to sleep. I would also have to go to ICU with nursing care also trained and familiar with MG, and how to keep me breathing, and what to do should I go into MG crisis regardless of all the best care given.

Is it worth it? Jim and I talked about it afterwords, with my accounting of the increased pain in recent weeks, possibly months, in the areas that would have been affected by that ruptured disc, and consequently then, hopefully, helped by surgery. I have a definite time linec of increase in the intensity in the pain in the areas he quizzed me about, causing an increase in the strength of the fentanyl patch, and an addition of the fentanyl suckers, but the suckers are used mostly at the end of the IVIG and a couple of weeks thereafter. I *have* had to use them for pain in my back and legs just lying in bed because and while I am sitting up. I am to remain sitting up first due to the swallowing, and then the reflux. I have so many pain sources that it really is hard to differentiate what pain comes from where. However, it is hard not to believe there will be some pain relief from the surgery. We went to the mall after my appointment, ate lunch and talked it through and through. Updates will follow. My appointment with my neurologist for MG is next week, and we will probably have come to a decision at that time. I am still happy with our doctors in Jonesboro.

TOODLES
Striving for a world without Myasthenia Gravis