(no subject)

[tylik]

We started by going over the MRI. At this point I'm liking Dr. S enough that he gets his own LJ identifier. BTW, neuroanatomy FTW, once again. If I can get my pain level down to where I can spend much time on the computer, I am *so* getting windows emulation set up so I can look at my MRI online. Okay, I'll look for open source viewers first, but I don't expect to be that lucky. Stupid proprietary format. The MRIs were awesome. (Here I've had at least four MRIs done, and none of my brain! I really need to keep a closer on who is doing what studies that would involve an MRI of my brain. I feel deprived.)

It looks like I have a minor disc bulge or tear on the right side of c5/c6, right up against the spinal nerve. Not huge, the sort of thing that has a high likelihood of resolving itself, but right exactly where one would expect it to be considering the symptoms I've been having. (For the last eight months. Argh.) So! Epidural injection next Tuesday (the shortest one to two weeks ever!) The logic being that it's likely chemical irritation if it is a tear. If that doesn't work we'll go back to considering facet joint injections... but darn, this is the first time there's been anything other than an abnormally healthy looking spine in the MRI. I really want this disc problem to heal up, but after all of the weird soft tissue / munged or torn ligaments / scar tissue / other stuff it's kind of a relief to be able to see an obvious sort of problem that fits everything that's going on. Especially since my posture and alignment are so good.

Meanwhile... even more gabapentin. I now have a prescription for truly ridiculous amounts of gabapentin. (I hope to get by with less, but it's nice to know I'll have more if I need it.) What's odd is that if I take enough to really control the pain, I feel less stoned. Okay, maybe not really odd, but odd to me.

The last few days have been pretty weird. In a big "I'm going to have to drop out of grad school because I can't do my job" funk. Which I suspect is anxiety fed, along the lines that if I convince myself the worst can happen, and can cope with that, I can deal, right? (Well, yes, but it's self inflicted suck.) So... I'm probably not going to find some quiet little temple where I can sweep the floors and work in the kitchen and no one will know my name... (At least not yet.)