Pinch Me!

Okay, so I have no idea how this came about, but ever since sometime Wednesday of this past week I have felt no pain in my back or leg. And I don't mean less pain or very little pain. There has been almost no pain at all! Perhaps it was the Medrol oral steroid prescription that Dr. Giedraitis prescribed at my appointment Monday (you know, the same one whose side effects include sleeplessness, upset stomach, and headaches, all of which I experienced this past week). Perhaps it was your prayers. Or perhaps it was a combination of lots of things. Either way, I am pain free!

Now I feel different symptoms of my herniated disc. I have a pinched nerve back there now, and it is causing numbness in my left leg. Specifically my toes go from not numb to totally numb starting from my big toe and proceeding to my little toe. I also feel numbness on the left, bottom part of my foot. In addition I feel occasional tingling in my right thigh, but that is very infrequent.

(Breaking here to go get the Princess up from her nap which I love doing :-) ... Alright, I'm back.)

So where do I go from here? I'm obviously still going to meet with my surgeon on Tuesday afternoon. Even if I am feeling better and more like myself, I don't want to let something linger if it needs to be taken care of surgically. If I can skip surgery I will, but I want to get this back stuff behind me permanently if I can so Vicki, Jasmine, and I can live our lives fully again. It all depends on what Dr. Tsahakis has to say. By the way, Dr. Tsahakis is apparently well-known and respected around these parts. Holly at church this morning said he operated on her Mom and husband, and Terry, a physician, thinks highly of him as well. So I feel even better about him, which I didn't think was possible.

We got a surprise yesterday morning. We took Jasmine to see Santa at the library in the morning. When we pulled back into our driveway afterward, Vicki noticed that our grass had been cut. I knew nothing about it. I was just going to leave it as-is since my back is very fragile right now. I suspect my neighbor Vinnie is behind it. He's a retired man who lives across the street from us with his wife Susan. They have always been very kind and helpful to us, so I thank God for people like them in our lives.

Anyway, that's about it for now. I hope you are all doing well.

God bless,

Aaron

P.S. Don't you just love the names of these doctors of mine?