poked and prodded

Things have been spotty here on the blog and I am truly sorry for that. On top of the Sweet Rose blog, two crazy toddlers, a lovely husband, the holidays, and all of my photography commitments, I've been dealing with mystery pains of my own that have lead me through quite the medical journey in search of some answers.

My first stop on my magical mystery medical tour was my gyn doctor. We thought that I had all the symptoms of endometriosis, but the only way to be sure was to do a diagnostic laparascopy. That's a fancy term for "We-need-to-open-you-up-to-see-for-sure." While I was under general anesthesia, I was the lucky recipient of my belly button being opened up and an additional three incisions in my lower abdomen. My abdomen was puffed up and after taking a sneaky peek around the inside of my girl parts, it was determined that the cause of my pain wasn't endometriosis; it wasn't gyn related at all.

Off to the next doctor: a gasteroenterologist (aka tummy and poo doctor). Can I just say that I was the youngest person in that waiting room by a solid 30 years minus the caretakers that accompanied their respective patients to the appointment? And I loved the surprised look on the doctor's face when he walked in and realized I was not a retired-Catherine, but a young-mother-Catherine. I gather he doesn't get that much. After discussing my symptoms, he was pretty positive that my pain wasn't GI-related, but he wanted to do a colonoscopy to rule anything out. Yep, colonoscopy. Hideous, horrible, awful colonoscopy. I did it, I survived, I never want another one of those. No GI problems were found, but he did recommend seeing a spine surgeon.

Spine surgeon it is. When your doctor comes in and basically tells you that your situation is a conundrum, hope is a tricky thing to come by. He's a very nice guy and totally committed to helping me, but in that moment, I was ready to just deal with the pain for the remainder of my life. Who needs to be able to pick up their kids anyway?

Yes, this is my spine. I had to have an MRI done to determine if there was any nerve damage and today was result day. As it turns out, I have a bulge in my disk between my L-4 and L-5 vertebrae and it's pinching nerves.

I'm guessing this is the picture that has the evidence, but this is my completely un-medical opinion.

Lucky me, I get to go have an injection similar to an epidural poked into my back tomorrow morning in hopes of un-inflaming the conflicted area. I'm just praying that it works and that I finally have some sort of relief.

I'll just have to wait and see...