[firefighter]

Hi Cheryl,

"Jump forward to late 2013. I started having random pains in my left arm and shoulder. Along with that was getting numbness and tingling in half of my left hand. Had a few doctors try to figure if out. Did physical therapy, had trigger-point injections done, X-rays and MRIs taken. Saw specialists in Seattle with little help. Went back to a spine doctor in Spokane who had another set of X-rays and an MRI done. He believed there were bone spurs along C 4-5-6 which were causing the pain, numbness. Scheduled surgery to clean the spurs up on April 29, 2015." Q: why didn't this debris show on the x-ray at this time?

The major part of the debris was I think, from the annulus which is not metal and has no visibility on x-rays or CT scans. As to why the other pieces did not show, I would guess it was because of the view angle or just not knowing exactly what was being looked at.

1. who was the surgeon at Stenum? Dr. Ritter-Lang did the surgery in 2007 at Stenum. 2. have you considered the fact that the surgeon who did the April 2015 surgery may have damaged these since they don't have experience operating around them? The surgeon in Spokane based what he was trying to do on the MRIs which showed lots of bone spurs. He did not go into the disc space, but rather found a loose piece on metal he assumed was from one of the discs that should not be where it was, lying loose at a nerve bed. I am having anomalies even now short three months out from having had surgery and my implants looked good just a few weeks ago in x-rays. My daughter-in-law is a PA for a neurosurgeon and she said they are perfect. 3. what did Ritter and Bertagnoli say about this ever happening with the M6 before? I have not ever read such a thing posted about the device. Bertagnoli has said from the get-go that the M6 is unstable and would not hold up in use. Both he and Ritter-Lang said the bone was extremely deteriorated and needed to be removed along with "both broken M6 ADR."

I am just having trouble with the fact that this didn't show up in those x-rays if it looked like "shrapnel" as they said it did? The majority of the shrapnel was like plastic, and had appeared to have caused the bone issues. Both doctors sounded like this was not something new to them.

I know all to well what that feels like. I had to cup my head in my hands at work as it felt like it would just plop over. I feel stronger than before; at least I have that. My neck muscles have really gotten better. I do a lot of isometrics! I was mostly worried because the German doctors stated my neck was very unstable and could collapse for little or no reason.

I was very pleased with the doctors and staff at the University of Washington. Dr. Hofstetter did the surgery. They will do some testing to try to figure out what happened and why the bone was so badly effected. Hope that helps clear some of this up.