Finding out today

Today is my doctor's visit to finally find out what is going on with my back. I leave in one hour and will fill everybody in when I return on what Dr. Wilson tells me. I hope it is decent news and not something along the lines of "well, we did all these tests and we really need to do this test now because the first tests didn't tell us what we need to know". I've been that route already. I want answers this time!


Update: Well, I am in shock. So much so that I almost forgot to post this update. I went to see the dr. as I said earlier and didn't get good news. It's nothing life threatening or anything, just frustrating. I do indeed have a herniated disc at either L-4 or L-5, I can't remember which he said. Normally, for this they would go in and do a discectomy, but since I'm lucky to have two rods in my back this won't be happening for me. Actually, NOTHING will be happening for me. Why? Because the herniated disc is underneath the lower rod in my back and there is a ton of bone that has fused that rod to my spine that they'd have to drill through and remove along with a lot of scar tissue. Dr. Wilson said that he wouldn't even want to try to go in and fix the disc because more then likely as soon as he took bone or scar tissue away from my spinal column there would be fluid leakage...a lot of fluid. Not good. He also said that he'd have to reposition the rod and that could cause nerve damage or possibly paralysis. He also told me that the lower rod is no longer attached to my spine, but that has nothing to do with the pain i'm having and really won't cause me any problems because it is encased in the bone so at least that was one kind of good thing to come out of this visit. He did say that 90% of people with herniated discs have them heal on their own within a year. I hope I'm one of those 90%. I do feel better then I did over Memorial Day and the numbness isn't as bad as it was back in April so that's good. Maybe that is a good sign? I hope so. Since the disc is already herniated, he didn't recommend physical therapy. He did say that they could try to go in and give me a steroid shot, if I wanted, but after he told me HOW they would do that I refused to have it done. Nope, I'll live with it. Unless it gets much, much, much worse, I will just live with it.