Who, What, Where and When?!?

I have to be in Ann Arbor tomorrow at 7:30am for my consultation with the pain clinic. Apparently now that we know it's a ruptured disk, as apposed to just a pinched nerve Dr. Mika feels I need better pain control medicine. I'd like to point out that both my wife, and my physical therapist have been saying it was a ruptured disk for weeks now.

So now I get to go to St. Joe on Ann Arbor and get them to give me good drugs. It's a strange thing the way things work. Until I was 18 or so I would never touch any kind of drugs, even for a headache. I refused even Aspirin, instead choosing to relax or sleep until the pain was gone. Which, with my history of chronic migraines was not the best choice in the world. I'm sure some of you out there know how it feels to have you head pound bad enough you want to vomit, and every movement you make sends bolts of pain in a spiderweb through your head. These are the headaches I've dealt with sense I was 8 years old, and to date I've never been able to solve them. Needless to say, when it comes to my headache, I have an enormous tolerance for pain.

But my back is something diffrent. I need a darvocet/vicodin and a Motrin just to be able to function.

But tomorrow I get to go see a Dr. that will tell me what he's going to do to solve my pain issue. And then on Friday I get the procedure done. Jen explained it all to me, and it makes me a bit nervous. I've never had anything remotely like surgery done. Well that's not true, I've had my tonsils out. Not that I remember it, but they are gone so someone must have taken them out at some point.

After the pain clinic I get to go see a specialist on the 14th, again at St. Joe in Ann Arbor. He's going to go over the MRI results with me and find the best option for recovery. And I'm praying that it's not surgery. I don't know if I can deal with that.