I Lived To Tell The Tale!

Today (Monday) was my 2nd Discogram and I was not happy! I was internally freaking out, and well maybe externally to. I may or may not have thrown a couple of hissy's on Mother's Day and maybe I shed a tear or two but I'll never tell... The whole fear of the procedure was kicking my tale! But I arrived bright and early for my appt Monday morning!

Checking in and waiting to be taken back wasn't a long wait so that was a good start. They took me back and the nurse proceeded to put the IV in my hand and I could tell right from the start by the look on the other nurse's face that this nurse was not going to do it right... And nope she didn't...blew the first vein, then said "oops next vein"! She moves onto the next vein and "oops didn't get that one either" yep lost the second one too! So she finally tells the other nurse "SO SORRY umm can you get it"?! UMMM *knock knock* it's me you should apologize to!! The 2nd nurse had it done in less than 10 seconds, I was so thankful! They informed me in triage that my Dr's description of "heavily sedated" was not accurate, I would be sedated but not heavily...Then I started shaking in my shoes!

I then met with the Dr who was a super fantastic guy. He explained everything to me (even though I'd had it done before I didn't know exactly what he was doing and wanted me to do as the last Dr wasn't very informative). Then the procedure nurses took me to the procedure room and got me all prepped and gave me my first dose of relaxant (no clue what it was). They were awesome nurses and told me that the Dr doing my procedure was very gentle and I should do just fine. I asked them how many discograms they do there and surprisingly they said typically they only do around two a month! WOW! That kind of shocked me for some reason.

I got my next dose of relaxant as the Dr came in with the Radiologist and they started the procedure. The sedation made me feel a bit sleepy and more relaxed, when he placed the first needle which was a local to numb the area of injection that one hurt a bit. But this Dr did it a bit differently than my first one. He numbed each layer all the way before he put in the bigger needle into the disc and let me tell you it made a world of difference! I was relatively comfortable through the whole procedure!!!!!! I felt alot of pressure but not even a fraction of the pain I felt the first time! I told the nurse that "you know I'm doing good when I don't shed a single tear" LOL!! Oh and this Dr didn't hit one nerve! Not one!! Last time they hit nerves at least three times that I can remember!

When they inject the dye they are looking for a reaction of pain or pressure, I only had one injection that mimicked my pain pretty much dead on. Dr asked me after he was done if I was okay and I told him that he was an awesome Dr and thanked him for making this so much easier on me!! They then sent me for the CT scan and back to recovery after that. As I was waiting for the CT disc to take to my Dr I rested then they buzzed the Hubby to bring the truck around to get me and started to wheel me out and I reminded them that I didn't have my CD yet so they park me in the hall *LOL* to figure out what the hold up was. While I was sitting there the Dr walked past and said to the nurse that he wanted to talk to me. He grabbed my chart and some pictures that were taken with the C-Arm during the procedure and he confirmed that I do have a positive result in the S1/L5 disc. Which means the dye leaked out causing the pain. I was so relieved to finally have some validation for my pain! I know it might sound strange to be glad that they found something but I don't feel crazy now LOL! I think this Dr went above and beyond to actually print these pictures for me and show me part of the results, most Dr's would just make you wait till you follow-up with your other Dr. So he told me to take all of my stuff to my next Dr appt and the radiologist will be sending a report with the results to my Dr ASAP. Now I just have to wait for June 4th to roll around! I think I can manage that, I've waited this long right?! I have had quite a bit of pain all day and night so I have been resting and taking my meds and that's helped a bit :)

The top 2 are negative and the bottom one is positive, those things coming out of the discs are the needles!






Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers, it is so awesome to have such support when going through all of this craziness!!