and the neurosurgeon appt - long, sorry, you know me!

[Guest guest]

We visited with the Neurosurgeon on Monday and it's good news. Just as we hoped

and prayed - the Neurosurgeon we saw is pretty sure he doesn't have a syrinx.

We saw a Physician's Asst. first who was so nice and she checked out pretty

thouroughly, I think she was surprised at how well he was doing for having a

syrinx. Then she left to confer with a Neurosurgeon. The neurosurgeon who read

K's MRI wasn't in so the other Neuro Dr. came in to talk with us. He came in

and said that he didn't think K had a syrinx which of course gave us the biggest

smiles and me - tears of course. We're all thrilled. Then he checks K out and

says he looks great. We then went to look at the MRI ourselves with him to see

what it looked like. Then we find out that he's only looked at the area he had

pain on his spine and up, he didn't know they had told us the syrinx was lower

and that the MRI was of the whole spine. I told him that the syrinx was in the

middle of his back - he hadn't looked at

that. We of course panic. He looks and says it's not a syrinx. Long story

short - it's kind of like something leftover from the formation of the spinal

column and will probably go away as he ages - pretty typical with kids I think.

He was surprised that a whole MRI of his spine was ordered in the first place.

He thinks that normally they would have just MRI'd the area of pain and up the

spine and it would have been clear. This thing showing up on the MRI would have

never shown up if they had MRI'd what they normally MRI with an injury typical

of his symptoms. None-the-less, it's still something he wants to monitor so

it's probably for the best it happened this way.

So then we go back into the exam room and he looks over K some more. So things

are looking great, he's actually okaying football and then he asks K about

weakness in his arms. K describes in his words what his arms felt like when the

injury happened and I think there was some confusion between true muscle

weakness and what K was experiencing right after the injury. So just to be

cautious he's now calling K's injury a SCIWORA (spinal cord injury without

radiographic abnormality). Means there was trauma to the spinal cord but it

never showed up on MRI and he's healed for the most part and we'll just approach

cautiously just to be safe. So no football or soccer this fall which we all are

in agreement that even if the Doctor had said yes, we probably would've passed

on the fall. Too scary. So picture the emotions: we go in scared to death, we

get good news and are on cloud nine, then he looks at the right part of the

spine and is cautious but still feels good about his symptoms,

then K answers his question about weakness and he's concerned so now we are

back to nervous again. At this point with all the talk of everything and the

Doctor talking about paralysis in children K's age from playing football and how

he's vulnerable because he's had a spinal cord injury - K gets up from the exam

table and bolts over to the sink and starts vomiting!!!! He was terrified! The

doctor quickly realizes he's scared the pucky out of and starts saying, " I

scared you, you're going to be fine and you'll play sports again, you'll be

fine " . K is white as a ghost. So we recover from that and decide the plan:

Normally with a SCIWORA you would be in a collar for 6 weeks - since he's doing

so well, he took it off today at 4 weeks. He only has to wear it in the car to

protect him in case we are bumped. We go back in August for a follow up with

the Neurosurgeon. Until then, he can walk, shoot baskets in the driveway, swim

with no diving, jumping, or horseplay - basically

a refreshing swim or doing strokes, can play backyard games but no contact

anything. He's thrilled and ready to play HORSE. We will have another MRI in

November just to monitor the situation and see where we are. The Doctor already

said he should be just fine to play Basketball come December

So it's a matter of easing back into activity. All in all good news - but it

was an emotional morning.

And that's the story as of today! Thank goodness.

Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers - they paid off.

love,

Jayne

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