[Ginny]

Dear Rhonda,

Wow! I bet your kids are amazing. The nine year old helping his big brother, that's a good heart. Your oldest recognizing that fact shows that he's got a good heart too. Many kids nowadays are all about themselves.

Has your oldest recovered now? Did he have any problems with the screws or rods? With you getting MRSA, did he get it too? You should check out that other section about staph infections.

As for the back brace...I went to the medical supply/pharmacy that my husband gets his from. The lady put me in a large size. It was sooo uncomfortable, but did keep me from bending. When I bumped into the doc at the hospital, she looked at it & said it was too big. She sent me to her pharmacy to get the same kind her mom wears. That fit much better & helped. The physical therapist looked at it & confirmed that I was short waisted (I'd always thought I was long waisted) & that the other chick put me in the wrong size. That pharmacy did help John, though, with a custom back brace that looks like a corset.

I've got the sciatica now going down my right leg. Guess when the flare up is done, I need to do more yoga. I can feel myself getting tight and my flexibility decreasing. I haven't mentioned it at work, frankly, I fear they'll try to find a reason to fire me if I mention it AGAIN. I haven't really noticed pushing on one spot when I wasn't feeling the sciatica to see if it flared up. I remember the doc pushed in 3 spots, I guess they were the trigger spots. She did mention that it could take awhile for the flare up to go away and it did but its back. I can move my leg in different positions and feel a difference. I do wonder sometimes if the xrays were wrong and I really have a bulging disk.

John takes ALOT of meds. He and I both hate that. Mobic is one of the last choices to try because of the side effects. I chewed him out when he came home that first day with the perscription bottle and handed ME the side effects sheet to read. Been nice if he could have read it, but he was too depressed, just wanted to take the stuff. Two of the side effects are cardiac arrest and performation of the bowel. I told him that I don't consider cardiac arrest a "side effect" and I did not want him to risk a hole in his gut and having to have an ostomy (that's where a surgeon trys to save your life by making an opening on your belly for the poop to come out). He was hurting & desparate and took it anyway. Now he swears by it, but he does take Zantac to decrease the stomach acid to decrease the risk for "busted gut".

His frozen feeling is more of a stiffness I think. He doesn't talk about it much, just takes the Mobic and the other meds. His back does get less stiff when the weather is warm though.

As for the difference between a discectomy and a laminectomy. John confirmed it for me...a discectomy is where you take the disc out (or some of the disc), the discs in the back are basically shock absorbers cushions and the laminectomy is where they remove some of the lamina or the bone. If I understand it correctly, its from the facet joints. So ones bone & ones disc.

All the best,
-ginny