Even though we've decided to not do the surgery right now, my surgeon still wants me to have a bunch of tests done.
I need to call and schedule an MRI, I still have the referral paper he gave me last week, good thing I didn't throw it out after deciding to not have the surgery huh?
After he gets the results of the MRI, he may, but will more than likely he said, have me go do a Myelogram.
I hate that test.
Hate it.
That page and every other page that describes the test, makes it seem like a piece of cake, but it's not.
You lie face down on this table, they strap you in so you absolutely cannot move, and they inject a contrast dye directly into your spinal cord.
Then the table rotates, up, down, side to side, and upside down, holding each final position for about a minute and a half while they watch the dye move through your nerves and blood vessels.
It's very unnerving being upside down for a minute and a half, all the blood rushes to your head, and the table is not soft, it's a hard xray table because they are doing xrays or CT scans to see where and how far the dye goes.
Then after the test, you have to lay in a bed with your head slightly elevated for 6 straight hours, you cannot move, you can't lay on your sides, you can't get up and use the bathroom, you have to lay there for 6 straight hours while the hole they made in your spinal cord closes up naturally on it's own.
They can't stitch it up for some reason, all they can do is put a small band-aid on it, but if you get up, even to just use the bathroom, your spinal fluid can drain out and that is apparently really bad.
I have a major issue with this part, well the whole test, but having to lay there in bed for 6 hours and not be able to use the bathroom.
I cannot pee in a female urinal.
I just can't.
There's something about it that my brain simply refuses to let me pee in the damn thing, so by the time they finally let me get out of the bed, the very 1st thing I do is run straight to the bathroom and let the flood gates open. ha ha
And hospital beds in the recovery rooms are awful, they are very hard, so it's painful for me to lay there perfectly flat for 6 hours. It's not like hospital beds are comfy anyway, it's a hospital, not the Riviera hotel.
They do this test to look for nerve damage, and my surgeon thinks that I have some nerve damage somewhere, but he's not really sure where exactly.
The nerves in the skin on my back have not fully regrown from the 1st surgery in 2006, I still cannot feel it when someone touches my back, I can't feel anything on my back at all, and he said that is very rare that after 3+ years, that I still do not have any feeling in my back.
He's also concerned about the random tingling in my hands and feet.
Both right and left hands, and right and left feet, randomly go numb and tingle, that fall asleep feeling, but it just happens whenever, nothing physical is causing it like it does when you fall asleep on your arm the wrong way, it just happens.
He wants to see why this is happening, and where the damaged nerves are.
So, even though I'm not having the surgery, I'm still going to have to go through all of the pre-surgical tests, that really sucks, I hate that damn Myelogram.
I always end up with a wicked bad headache after, probably because of the whole spinal fluid thing, but the headache takes hours and hours to go away.
I hope that he sees what he needs to see in the MRI and we don't have to do the Myelogram, I just really hate it and never wat to have to do that test again.
====================
I need to call and schedule an MRI, I still have the referral paper he gave me last week, good thing I didn't throw it out after deciding to not have the surgery huh?
After he gets the results of the MRI, he may, but will more than likely he said, have me go do a Myelogram.
I hate that test.
Hate it.
That page and every other page that describes the test, makes it seem like a piece of cake, but it's not.
You lie face down on this table, they strap you in so you absolutely cannot move, and they inject a contrast dye directly into your spinal cord.
Then the table rotates, up, down, side to side, and upside down, holding each final position for about a minute and a half while they watch the dye move through your nerves and blood vessels.
It's very unnerving being upside down for a minute and a half, all the blood rushes to your head, and the table is not soft, it's a hard xray table because they are doing xrays or CT scans to see where and how far the dye goes.
Then after the test, you have to lay in a bed with your head slightly elevated for 6 straight hours, you cannot move, you can't lay on your sides, you can't get up and use the bathroom, you have to lay there for 6 straight hours while the hole they made in your spinal cord closes up naturally on it's own.
They can't stitch it up for some reason, all they can do is put a small band-aid on it, but if you get up, even to just use the bathroom, your spinal fluid can drain out and that is apparently really bad.
I have a major issue with this part, well the whole test, but having to lay there in bed for 6 hours and not be able to use the bathroom.
I cannot pee in a female urinal.
I just can't.
There's something about it that my brain simply refuses to let me pee in the damn thing, so by the time they finally let me get out of the bed, the very 1st thing I do is run straight to the bathroom and let the flood gates open. ha ha
And hospital beds in the recovery rooms are awful, they are very hard, so it's painful for me to lay there perfectly flat for 6 hours. It's not like hospital beds are comfy anyway, it's a hospital, not the Riviera hotel.
They do this test to look for nerve damage, and my surgeon thinks that I have some nerve damage somewhere, but he's not really sure where exactly.
The nerves in the skin on my back have not fully regrown from the 1st surgery in 2006, I still cannot feel it when someone touches my back, I can't feel anything on my back at all, and he said that is very rare that after 3+ years, that I still do not have any feeling in my back.
He's also concerned about the random tingling in my hands and feet.
Both right and left hands, and right and left feet, randomly go numb and tingle, that fall asleep feeling, but it just happens whenever, nothing physical is causing it like it does when you fall asleep on your arm the wrong way, it just happens.
He wants to see why this is happening, and where the damaged nerves are.
So, even though I'm not having the surgery, I'm still going to have to go through all of the pre-surgical tests, that really sucks, I hate that damn Myelogram.
I always end up with a wicked bad headache after, probably because of the whole spinal fluid thing, but the headache takes hours and hours to go away.
I hope that he sees what he needs to see in the MRI and we don't have to do the Myelogram, I just really hate it and never wat to have to do that test again.
OH man, no that is far from an easy test, and so not a picnic...yeah the spinal cord itself has to naturally close on its own, sort of like a vein they draw blood from, and when they dye test (my brain shorting out here) where they go in via the groin area to check the main artery, they can't stitch that either, has to naturally close on its own.. 6 hours laying still and flat like that seems like eons!! I am crossing my fingers for you that you don't have to have this test. And if you do that they can give you something for that gosh awful headache..