Just My Luck

I'm a pretty lucky person. I just have good luck. I was that kid who always won the cakewalk at the school carnival. As an adult, I tend to win contests/drawings. It just happens that way. But, when it comes to my body, I have bad, bad luck. I always have bizarre things going on with me. A femur tumor? Really? Six wisdom teeth? Not surprised. An ovary fused to my uterus? Just par for the course. Strange, strange, strange. Well. my recent medical issue is no exception.

I've been having severe lower back pain for about five months now. It constantly hurts, but some days are tolerable, others I can barely get out of bed. The only time it doesn't hurt is when I exercise (I know, seems counterintuitive). After months of just dealing with it I finally started going to a chiropractor. After three adjustments a week for more than a month and no change, Andy and I thought it best to go to the doctor. So I did. After going over my symptoms he ordered an MRI. Here's what it showed:

-I have a ruptured disc in my lower back
-I have an extra disc which has thrown my back all out of whack.
-My sacrum (the triangular bone at the base of your spinal column) is in two pieces. It's supposed to be one.
-There are some "growths" on my spine they want to take a look at

So there you have it. Weird, right? I meet with a neurosurgeon next week to discuss the best course of action. Many doctors will recommend physical therapy for a ruptured disc, but in some cases surgery is necessary. Obviously, the major concern is the effect the ruptured disc and extra disc are having on my nerves. If a ruptured disc goes untreated for long enough it could lead to severe nerve damage. If the neurosurgeon does choose surgery, the good news is that a discectomy is a fairly common, minimally-invasive procedure with a short recovery time. But who knows if he'll want to go in and take care of the other issues, or go in at all. We could speculate right now, but at this point we'll just wait and see. Andy and I are just grateful I decided to go to the doctor, and that we have great insurance. Thank goodness he works for the government!

My appointment is Thursday (which happens to be Andy's birthday). In the meantime, I'm not supposed to lift more than 10 pounds (yeah, good luck with that) or exercise. The doctor prescribed some serious meds, but I don't think they're necessary. I'll just stick with good ol' ibuprofen. Ava is good to remind me to take ibuprofen every morning and gets stern with me when I pick up Jax. And she's ALWAYS sure to tattle to Daddy when I do something I'm not supposed to. I should be grateful she's looking out for me, but I'm more just annoyed she's such a little stickler for the rules. In all other areas of life, I appreciate how good she is about following the rules... except when she's making sure I'm the one to follow them!