Did the doctor’s appointment today. Looked at the X-ray and MRI. No sign of arthritis anywhere else in my body, but my neck is a mess. Vertebrae out of alignment. Bone spurs. Cartilage totally gone between 4 and 5, 5 and 6, and almost gone between 6 and 7. The sheath around my spinal cord is compressed. The nerves to my biceps and triceps are getting pinched off. No damage to the spinal cord yet, but that’s next if we don’t deal with this now.
The doctor said I was unusual (if you can imagine that). Most people with this much degeneration (did he just call me a degenerate?) would have come to see him for narcotics for the pain. Me, I just notice a drop-off in strength. For some reason it doesn’t really hurt much.
We still need to get Judy’s knee taken care of (so she’ll be able to run around and take care of me when I get my neck done). We’ve got her knee surgery scheduled for early January. We’ll schedule my neck surgery for early February. My recovery will take a couple months. Ultimately though, I should regain most of the neck range of motion I have now.
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