A Tale of Tasers and Needles

Vicodin makes it really hard to concentrate, spell properly, and order your thoughts in a logical fashion. Yes, I'm still on vicodin. Today's a bad day for me -- as have most days this week. I had injection therapy a week ago, and it really didn't do all that much for me this time around. (Obviously, if I'm taking vicodin.)

I figured I'd post an update on the new busted hotness that is my neck. This has been a week of developments -- it's been like sweeps week in the melodrama that is my spinal cord. I had an EMG on Tuesday which was in parts midly annoying and in parts incredibly painful. I'm not really down with having electrified needles stuck in the sore spots on my neck.

The results were a little bit of Column A and some of Column B. The good news is that I don't have acute nerve damage -- which means I don't need immediate decompression surgery (i.e., removing the bulging part of the disk). The bad news is that there are clear signs of chronic radiculopathy. In English that means chronic nerve damage. And in understandable English it translates to: you have nerve damage that was caused at some point in the past which has become a chronic condition that we're going to have to figure out a way to manage while your body repairs itself.

Round One is over and the neck has won this match. Round Two starts on Dec. 22 when I have a follow-up consult with the RingLeaderOrthopedicSurgeon. A new plan of attack will be devised, and hopefully will yield better results. Until then, I'll be on my happy pills, so drop in -- I'm 57.4% less crotchy when narcotics are involved.