Confessions – 2007

Being Exiled

Exiled…that word sounds terrifying! Captured…another word! Can you imagine being kidnapped or captured and put in a place all by yourself to do nothing but “think” for the rest of your life? Well, that is the way I have felt for months. Sitting here day after day, waiting on test results, waiting for surgery dates, and waiting on an answer from God as to why all this was happening, has been sheer agony.

In May, 2007 I had what I thought was an RA flare. I had so much pain in my low back that I could hardly walk. I ended up in the emergency room and was prescribed steroids and pain medications to get me through. It took about two weeks, but the pain finally subsided. I did okay for the next several months, but in October, 2007, it happened again. Same thing happened; I went to the ER, the doctor prescribed the same things, and sent me home. This time, it didn’t go away. I told my rheumatologist, over and over again, that my low back was hurting and getting worse and worse. She did some x-rays and determined I had another autoimmune disease called Ankylosing Spondylitis. This disease eats away at the tissue and discs in the spine, whereas the RA eats away at all other joints in the body. The good news was the medication I was on for the RA was the same they would give me for the AS.

“Okay”, I thought, “I have a new disease, no big deal, I can handle this.” I had been dealing with the RA, and my Hypo-thyroid disease, for some time now and this isn’t much different. I said to myself, “I am strong and God will get me through this too”! Well, that’s what I thought anyway. It wasn’t long before the pain in my back got worse and started radiating down my legs. They finally decided to do an MRI to see what else might be going on. The MRI showed there was some deterioration in the Lower Lumbar Spine and a mild case of Spinal Stenosis (narrowing of the spinal canal) from the AS. They sent me to a Neurosurgeon to get his opinion.

In November, 2007, I saw the neurosurgeon for the first time. He said that there was some damage (what they call black discs), but that I was too young to have the vertebrae fused, because once they opened me up and fixed one disc, it’s kind of like cancer, the disease will immediately go up and attack another disc. Then in 3 to 5 years we will have to fuse again. So, he wanted me to go have 3 epidural injections to see if that would help with the pain. He said physical therapy was out of the question because it would make things worse.

I was sent over to Northside Hospital’s Pain Center to see Dr. Richard Muench. I received the 1^st of 3 epidural injections on November 20, 2007. I was told to keep a pain journal to track how the injections were working.

Please see my “Journals – 2″ Section for the rest of the story.

Psalm 23: 4

Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death, ^[^a^]
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.