July 22, 2011 - Appointment at Moncton City Hospital

Here I am for my check-up at the Moncton City Hospital.  Dr. El-Hawary has a clinic here.  You can see that I am slanted a little bit to one side now. (Don't mind the date on the pics - it should be the 7th not the 8th month!!)

This time it went fast - walked in had an x-ray right away, waited for about 15 minutes, then we were in the examining room!!! Wow - last time was like 4 hours!!!!!!

Here I am with an  xray.  Ever wonder what an x-ray of my face and neck looks like????



Glad they didn't xray my brain!!!!!!

 Here is the xray of my spine.  It is now T 51 degrees and L 37 degrees.  YIKES!!  Both curves increased 6 degrees since April.  I also grew 4 cm since then.   This increase means surgery for me. Probably in November or December.  I'm not excited about the surgery, but I'd rather have it done and over with!!  


The xray on left is the one taken today.  The xray on the right is from April. 



                    Now, we are just waiting for a call with a definite date for surgery.  The Doc thinks that he'll have to fuse from T4 to L2 or possibly L3.  Hope not too far down as I don't want to lose too much flexibility!! 
We have asked for another Doctor to assist Dr. El-Hawary with the surgery as he has never done a minimally invasive spinal fusion before on a live human!!! EEK!!   :0   
He has done many, many traditional posterior fusions though, and we have great confidence in him...  BUT .... hopefully the other Doc can come and assist!! The MIS surgery takes about 7 hours compared to the traditional way that takes around 3 1/2 hours, but there is less muscle trauma and less blood loss, and hopefully less pain!!!!!!!!!!   Hopefully we'll hear something from the IWK soon.

My Mom bought me a rose when we were done for the day.