5 days!

Here we are folks! The week of the wedding. Its not exactly how I thought I would be spending the week of my wedding, but God wont give me anything I can't handle. The past week or so I have been feeling better. I am able to be out of bed, up and around for a couple hours before I start feeling alot of pain and have to lay down and rest. I am still taking pain killers but not as much. The past 2 weeks I got 2 medial branch blocks, followed by radiofrequency (burning of the nerve endings) on the left side. This morning I had the block done on the right side and wednesday morning I will have the radiofrequency done. These procedures are uncomfortable but I am sedated. They had some trouble the first couple procedures getting me sedated enough because I have a high tolerance to the medications since I have been on narcotics for almost 2 months now. I was feeling most everything they did which was not fun. The third procedure and this morning we have figured out what works for me as far as sedation and it has been a much more pleasant experience. Like I said, Wednesday morning at 11 am i will have the radiofrequency done. My mom will come up for that tomorrow and then will drive me to knoxville after the procedure. I would not be able to drive myself, even not having the procedure done wednesday morning because driving is painful for me and takes alot of strength which i dont really have. My prayer requests are that the procedure on wednesday relieves my pain on the right side and that it doesnt make me too sore. Usually, I am very sore for a couple days after the procedure. I know I will be sore on Thursday but I'm hoping it wont be too bad because Thursday is such a busy day. I have a couple girly appointments and we are meeting the the minister. I hope and pray I can make it through all this. Please pray for strength, pain relief, and energy for this whole wedding weekend. On sunday we will leave for the Grand Caymans for our honeymoon. I am worried that I wont be able to do all the fun activities that Harrison has planned for us. I dont want to have to be on lots of pain killers and be in bed alot on our honeymoon. I want to be able to be outside and enjoy all the Caymans has to offer. Please pray for this as well. Thanks again for all the prayers and support recently! They have helped. The next time I post I will be a married woman!!

16 days...

Hey everyone. So its been a little over a week since my last post but lots has happened. Last friday, I saw the pain specialist and it was an extremely productive appointment. She changed and added some medications and scheduled me immediately for some procedures. She knows the ultimate goal is to get my pain as minimal as possible by the wedding. On monday I had my first medial branch block. A medical branch block is like a typical nerve block in the sense you are trying to "block" the nerve impulses but more invasive because of the area they work on. On the front of your vertabrae, you have joints called facet joints. Off of these joints are tiny little nerves called facet nerves or medial branch nerves. On monday and wednesday I had this procedure done on my l eft side. It is done under continous xray while I am mildly sedated. I am place on my stomach, put on a little bit of oxygen and monitors and they insert 4-5 needles with lidocaine and steroid into the medial branch area. The recoveries from these procedures is short but I get very very sore. On Monday I also had14 trigger point injections of botox into the muscles of my neck and shoulders to help with my muscle spasms. The next step is on Monday where I will have radiofrequency done on the left side to essentially burn the end of the nerve fibers. Then we will probably repeat these procedures on my right side. We wil most likely be cutting it very very close to the wedding but we are just trying to make my wedding an honeymoon as enjoyable as possible. If these procedures work, they can last for up to 3-6 months. I have had to apply for short term disability because I have been out of work for so long and have run out of sick time. I have mixed feelings about this but it was the best decision as I deal with all this.
In other news, I have officially moved into the townhouse Harrison and I are going to live in for our first year of marriage. My mom, dad, and harrison moved everything while I was instructed not to lift anything heavier than a pillow and just offer moral support. This was very hard for me to just give up all the control and let them do literally everything. I am so thankful for my wonderful parents. My mom has been in Nashville basically the past 2 or 3 weeks with me for all my doctors appointments and procedures. She's cooked, cleaned (both places), run errands for me, and pretty much been at my beck and call.
We are down to 16 days till the wedding. Its so hard to believe it is so close. The engagement has flown by. I am so ready mentally, but physically i'm not quite there yet. My hope and prayer is that in 16 days I will be close to pain free....even if it only lasts for a couple weeks to get me through the wedding week and honeymoon. I literally havent been pain free or even close to pain free for almost 4 years and the past 6 weeks or so has been mostly miserable. I do feel that I am making progress and I feel blessed to have found a doctor who is so proactive and really understands the sense of urgency and the goal.
Thanks to everyone who has been praying for me. I really do feel that the power of prayer has helped, especially emotionally for me to feel more positive, hopeful, and experiencing less worry. Many many thanks. :)

Countdown begins

So we are officially less than a month away from the wedding. I can not believe how quickly our engagement has gone....i just hope the next 4 weeks go by as quickly. I am so ready to be married to the man I love. All the final details are falling into place. I think the wedding and reception are going to be absolutely beautiful and so much fun. My hope and prayer is that I am feeling ok with little pain to deal with.
As far as my neck, not much has changed. I'm still going to PT 2 times a week. Last week I was still having alot of pain and not feeling any relief from the steroid injection so I called my neurosurgeon and after waiting for 3 days for a call back, they finally called and said that as of right now, it doesnt appear that I am a candidate for surgery...(Thats also what I heard 2 years ago, then after my surgery, my neurosurgeon admitted he was wrong). I was only able to work 12 hours last week....an 8 hr shift and a 4 hr shift. This is very discouraging for me. I feel like I am letting down my managers and the baby and family I have been taking care of since January 1.
This week I have an appointment with a doctor at the pain specialty clinic at Vanderbilt, then I will see my neurosurgeon again. I'm interested to see what the pain specialist can offer me in lieu of traditional pain medication. While the medication helps, I can not take it while working and it makes me kinda loopy so I definitely dont want to take it on my wedding day.
Harrison and I are both in the process of moving. Last week Harrison was making small trips to take things over to our townhouse (it took 4 trips just for our gifts!!) and this weekend he painted the master bedroom and upstairs hallway. My mom has been in town packing my stuff, and organizing and unpacking our gifts. I'm going to officially move this weekend and harrison will move the week before the wedding when I am already in Knoxville. It will be nice to come back from the honeymoon and already be moved and unpacked for the most part. I havent been able to help move very much at all because I am not allowed to lift. I mostly point and direct and offer moral support. Again, this is hard for me. Please continue to pray for my neck and for me to let go of control and let people help me. This is a challenge for me because I do not want to burden anyone. My mom and Harrison have both been so amazing, helpful, and supportive. I dont know what I would do without them. I am truly blessed. I will probably always need help lifting and carrying anything that weighs more than about 10 pounds (groceries, heavy laundry, etc) which is hard for me to admit. I asked Harrison if he still wanted to marry me, knowing that he will have to help me with things around the house for the rest of his life, and without hesitation, he said "of course I do." I am a very lucky girl to be marrying such an amazing man.

Updating..

So since my last post, alot has happened. I had an appointment with the neurosurgery group on Thursday April 2. The doctor I was supposed to see was out of town, but I saw the nurse practitioner who was wonderful. She went through all my MRI slides with me and explained there could be several possible reasons for my pain. First, My C4-5 disc (the one above my surgery site) is pretty bad. A normal cervical disc is supposed to look like a long oval. It is supposed to be very white on xray because it is supposed to be filled with fluid. Well, mine is long and flat and gray so I basically have no shock absorption in my neck. Second, my C 4 vertabrae has changed shape because of the change in my disc and I have bone spurs off my c4 vertabrae. The NP said eventually it is most likely I will have to have surgery. Its just a matter of when. The last possible reason for my pain is beause of a partial fusion. Basically, they were worried that my first surgery didnt really "take". That instead of having one solid bone, that i could have areas that did not fuse or grow together. The only way to tell that is from a CT scan. So I scheduled a CT scan. The NP also wanted to start physical therapy and do a round of steroid injections. So I made those appointments as well. She also told me not to work the following week and to basically do nothing to see if we can get this under control. Luckily, my work is very understanding. The following weekend was a very busy weekend. Harrison and I had a couple shower, and our engagement pictures done, we picked out tuxes, i met with the florist, and I had a shower for me. It was a fun weekend but very hard for me since I was in alot of pain. I didn't want to be all drugged up for the parties so i just kinda grinned and bared it. Between everything we did, my mom was addimant about me resting. My mom and I left Knoxville on Monday morning and head back to Nashville and straight to my 1st physical therapy appointment. On Wednesday I had my CT scan and my steroid injection in my neck. On Friday I got a call from the doctors office and the nurse said it "appeared" i had a solid fusion but the doctor is out of town and wont get back until Monday. So I have to wait for an official read. The cervical steroid injection made me sore for a couple days but i still really havent felt much relief. It can take up to 5-7 days to feel relief so I'm hoping it will still help. I really want to try to work some this week but i just have to see how I feel. I'll start going to physical therapy twice a week. I'm just praying something we do helps. Lord knows I just want to feel good when I walk down the aisle in 5 weeks.

Prayer requests...

Wedding planning is still going very smoothly. Invitations have been sent and my final dress fitting is next week. Our engagement picture session (better late than never) is most likely going to be this weekend. We have had two incredibly wonderful showers. One was thrown by my parents friends and the other was thrown by our college friends in Birmingham. We had a great time at both. We have 2 more showers this weekend. One thrown by Harrison's parents friends and one for me given by 2 of my wonderful bridesmaids. We are really getting down to the final details now and its been really exciting.

On another note, I've been dealing with some health issues the past few weeks. Some of you may know that about 2 years ago, I had neck surgery to remove and replace 2 herniated discs in my neck. While I've never been completely pain free, my pain is usually minimal and tolerable. I sometimes have flare ups if I work too much, lift something too heavy, or overwork my self with housework like vaccuuming, laundry, etc. Occasionally I still have "flare ups". I'll take some pain medicine, take it easy for a couple days, and I'm usually okay. Well about 2 weeks ago, I started having what I thought was just a flare up. After some meds and rest, I wasnt getting any better and the pain was different. More intense, more localized in one place, and not really relieved by medication and rest. Its a little bit of a complicated story but I have been trying to get in with the neurosurgery group for sometime but cant because I needed a referral and an updated MRI. I took a sick day from work to try to get in with a primary care physician but couldnt get an appt till April 15. I thought I could manage till then but last Tuesday at work, I was unable to cope with the unbearable pain and went the the ER. I got more pain medication and and MRI that showed worsening changes since my last MRI a year ago. So long story short, I have an appointment with a neurosurgeon on Thursday. I have pretty much been bed ridden and on pain killers for 2 weeks. That is my current state as I write this. I tried to make it through work today but was in tears after only 5 hrs so I had to come home. I write all this to ask for prayers. I am really having a hard time. Physically I am in alot of pain and emotionally I feel very defeated. I hate not being able to work, because I love my job and I feel pretty worthless just laying in bed. I am also overwhelmed with things that I need to accomplish (school work, thank you notes, packing for the move, wedding details, etc.) I worry how I will accomplish all this in my current state. I pray that the doctor will have answers and options for me on Thursday. Thanks for reading. I'll keep you updated.

So far so good...

So the past couple weeks have gone pretty well. School is back in full swing for me so I've kept really busy with work and school. I had my first test today and it went well. Harrison has had a great week at work this week and brought in a lot of business so he has been in a good mood this week! I'm still waiting on my dress to come in. We've got several showers planned so far so we will be travelling alot the next couple months to and from Knoxville. We will also be heading to Birmingham for a shower and a wedding in March. We both still love going to back to Birmingham to visit all our friends. No other big news to report as of now! Thanks for checking in!

Trying something new...

So, with the upcoming wedding and so many of our friends starting blogs, I caved and decided to start one! The wedding is less that 4 months away and its crazy to think that in 3 1/2 months, Harrison and I will be walking down the aisle! Planning has been going pretty smoothly with no major probelms so far (thank goodness!). My mom and I got the invitations orderd last week and met with the florist. Both the florist and my mom have such great ideas that I know it is going to be such a beautiful occasion. When we were at the church and I walked down the center aisle, I couldn't help but imagine myself making that same walk in a few months!
I hope to keep this blog up to date and post often!