photo credit: Sander Zelhelm/Unsplash

A lot of people know that I had a neurosurgeon appointment this afternoon. I’m blogging about it here rather than repeat the story every time someone asks, “How was your appointment?”

In a word, it was good. It was hopeful. I feel like there is light at the end of this tunnel.

I liked this doctor very much, and so did Mr. McBody. (for the record, we’ve liked ALL of them so far) He said, there is a chance it might improve on its own. There is a chance you could get through this without surgery. But there is also a chance that this very painful and unbearable condition could go on much longer.

He described a few possible surgical procedures that will most likely bring great relief. One of which was not discussed previously.  I’m not going to go into great detail here because … well, I just don’t want to. I feel like I want to make this decision together with this surgeon, my own self and with Mr. McBody. The options that he laid out made good sense to me and I am comfortable with them. I am going to research more over the weekend and give it some thought. I’ll say more when we know for sure what’s going to happen.

We are going to try and put one of these surgeries on the calendar for next week (probably Wednesday). But this depends on getting authorization from my insurance company, and getting onto the calendar at the hospital, and all that. A lot of things need to come together.

I also got a new medication that could possible alleviate some of the dreadful nerve pain. Cross my fingers, it could help. I started it tonight and we shall see.

The plan is to lay low, keep it unstressed and comfortable, and re-evaluate on Monday or Tuesday. If it feels the same or worse and it gets approved, we will go ahead and try to do the surgery midweek. But if it feels better… then we might wait a while longer. Wait another week or two and see if it might continue getting better. Maybe the surgery can be avoided.

So that’s the plan. I’m laying low. I’m crossing all the digits. I’m packing on the ice and continuing to do all I can in the supine position.

But I feel happy that there’s a plan. It makes sense. I’m ready for whatever comes next. I feel…. hopeful.