Fear Bites

I have so fallen short of the whole post a day thing.  Life has managed to bitch slap me and I am SO not taking it well.

It has been almost 2 weeks since I went to visit my rheumy after caving into the fact that my leg is misbehaving to see if it is an enbrel thing or not.  It has been a LONG, kind of scary, stressful couple of weeks.  I’m trying really hard to stay as normal as I can.  It isn’t working.

Why did I go?

My gait started to be… wrong.  My left leg feels kind of asleep most of the time and when I put my left foot down it was kind of… duck feet slappy down rather than the way it normally rolls.  It turned in when I pushed too hard.  It started getting worse rather than the better that it was supposed to get.

Dr Booth did the doctor thing.  She said it wasn’t acting like an Enbrel reaction.  That would not be quite so ‘logical’ in its appearance.  It could be, but probably not.  In the interest of making sure, don’t take it until we find out.

I had x-rays.

Then I got sent for a contrast MRI.  Don’t let them BS you… the contrast dye hurts… it hurts worse when they blow out the vein they are trying to put the dye in.  The MRI machine talks to you… especially when you have a very active imagination.  The different scans say different things…  When you are stuck there for an hour, it gives you something to listen to. The tech said don’t even cough… you can cough when the machine stops making noise.  The freaking thing is ALWAYS making noise, but I got what she meant… the loud noise.  So as soon as she said that… I felt like I had to cough for an hour.   After the scan.. not even once.  HELLO…. don’t plant the thought… geeze.

Wait for the results.  The lady at the radiology place told the guy who came in after me that it would be several days before he got the results.  I figured a few days.  48 hours later I got the call from Dr Booth.  That was Friday.

She has already warned me that it was probably a herniated disk.  Which it was.  What I wasn’t ready for was the fact that it is also degenerative disk disease and that it is affecting all of my lumbar vertebrae.  Unless everyone we have been talking to are wrong, I will probably have spine fusion surgery.  I will probably not be taking my enbrel until after a few weeks after the surgery.

I really really don’t like the ideas that the lady across the street told us yesterday.  she has simple herniated disk surgery (but hers is special, it is the worst anyone has ever seen… she was on disability for three months last year and had a catheter for two months and still isn’t back to working full time… and now eleven moths later and it looks like she will be on disability for three months again this year because she is probably having spinal fusion surgery because something is way messed up again).  It scares the $%^& out of me.  I know that there are people who live for being on disability and the attention.  I am scared of the surgery… I’m scared of not being able to be me and do what I do.  I want to do our sunday walk again and enjoy it.

Now, two weeks without enbrel, my toes are puffy again.  And I’m waiting to find out what the surgeon says tomorrow morning.