OOHH the big red letter stands for the neurosurgery, OH the big red letter stands for the neurosurgery...

It's bulging! Fun fun fun, into the nerves fun fun fun, and the SPIIIIINAL COLUMN two below T3!!!!

Okay the last bit was a stretch but clever no? (for anyone who didn't grow up in utah, that was the Jell-O song...I don't know why it morphed that way in my head but it did and there you go).

So I went to the doctor a bit ago because I felt another lump like the one I had removed last year. She thought she felt a few but that maybe they were cysts. So she sent me to the hospital for an ultrasound and figured as long as I was there they'd do an MRI on my back since it's not much better from when I hurt in in November. Well I got the results back yesterday, and the lumps, of which there are two, are seemingly benign fibro-whatsits and small so they're fine we just need to check them in 6 months. However the MRI showed that the disc between T5 and T6 is bulging on the right side and pressing in on my spinal column and regularly messing with the nerves on that side. Which explains the shocky snappy pains I've been having but in a very creepy way. So I have to go see a neurosurgeon who is probably (because he's a neuroSURGEON) going to say I need surgery, to which I am going to reply, "yeah right". I'm not afraid of surgery (how could I be at this point), but I can't afford to take that amount of time off work. First of all because they'd probably just replace me and secondly because we need my income. And also because I'm afraid of THIS surgery. Backs freak me out. I was looking around online to see what it involves and the thoracic surgery USED to be an open chest thing. They couldn't reach it from the back so they'd open your chest, crack your ribs, deflate a lung, and who knows what else. Supposedly now it's easy and they do it with lasers. But it's still creepy--if they screwed it up I could get meningitis or be paralyzed or something nasty. I haven't talked to him yet though, so we'll see what he says. Maybe I can make do with some physical therapy and stuff.

Also, my kids are cute. I don't know if you knew this, but they are. They're pills, but they're cute. I see quite a lot of them lately because Chris totalled the car in January so I'm driving everyone everywhere all the time, but you know something? As irritating as it can be to be in the car all the time, I do see my family a lot, and when we're all in the car together we talk and play games and have nice family time. Until they start screaming, but generally that comes in the afternoon/evening time. Mornings are nice.

Oh yeah, and I joined a book club and we just read the most horrendous book ever, "The Traveler's Gift" by Andy Andrews. But one of the points in it I did decide to try to remember and impliment in my life and that is to Choose to be Happy. Typical glass is half full stuff, but if you think about it especially nowadays, things are not nearly what they could be. Yeah, my back hurts and I'm afraid of what that means. But I don't have cancer. I don't have to have surgery right now with no arguments. I HAVE a job that I love and don't want to take time off of. I have a home, food, clothes, washer and dryer (that I love much more than I should), a car, two healthy intelligent children, a healthy intelligent loving husband, two Dr. Who seasons on DVD, a friend (who buys me chocolate sometimes), another wonderful friend who takes Zoe to school in the morning so I can work a few more hours, more friends from church, I could seriously go on and on. I've been thinking a lot about this since I read the book and that's a good thing, so I guess I can't say I'm sorry I read it, but really, don't read it. It's terrible!

Well after that terribly thought out and poorly put together post I'm going to say Good Night and go to bed with my kleenex and Nyquil because I'm actually pretty sick at the moment as well--but at least it's just a head cold.