"I'm afraid you're a little off" said the Doctor

Okay. So on Monday I decided to cheat Murphy's Law and clean my house so I wouldn't have to have surgery. This actually makes sense because everytime I get injured or really sick or require someone to come into my house for any reason my house is a complete disaster and only gets worse with my being laid up. It NEVER happens when the house is clean. So I figured that if I clean the house and do all the laundry and make everything really nice-I even dusted my bedroom--then I wouldn't have to have surgery. It really makes sense if you think about it, plus on the off chance it didn't work then I'd have a nice clean house when people came to help me.

So I went to the actual surgeon today and here's the verdict. I do have a herniated disc between T5 and T6 which is causing me topical pain. I also have a thoracic strain, probably the same one I've had since November that hasn't healed yet. But the nerves from this disc are not being disturbed which is a very good thing because the doctor told me that this particular operation is one the most dangerous and difficult operations there is and no surgeon in his right mind wants to ever do it unless he absolutely has to. Whew, dodged that bullet. But because he is the nerve specialist who is not intimidated by MRIs, he noticed what no one else had noticed yet. My pain and nerve problems simply can NOT be caused by that area of the back. They have to be caused by the Lumbar--so basically because a lot of my pain is thoracic they did that MRI and found a relatively inconsequential disc problem and heaped the blame on that instead of finding out the real problem. So he went out in the hallway and came back with a physical therapist and they discussed many things in very technical terms. The surgeon wanted to order a Lumbar MRI to see what the problem is down there, but the physical therapist convinced him to wait a month and let him see what he could do because he thinks that won't even be necessary.

So then I went over to the physical therapist's office because he just happened to have a free several hours (I know?), and while we were talking about things he suddenly stopped and asked me why I was standing with my weight on my right leg. Apparently because I'm right handed I should be standing on my left leg. Long story short, my right leg is 2-3 mm shorter than my left. This is enough of a problem that my entire spine is curvy--it goes off to the right and then tries to straighten up by curving back left around the thoracic area, hence the thoracic disc bulging to the right. He said he would bet good money that I have at least one if not two discs bulging to the left in the lumbar. So now I have to wear a lift in my shoe. How retarded is that?!? Good news though is that with the lift and lots of physical therapy he thinks that he can fix not only the pain but also the underlying disc problems. Woohoo!

So I win twice! Because I don't need surgery AND my house is all sparkly clean for me to enjoy! My activities are much more restricted--I'm not allowed to do ANYTHING that hurts that I don't absolutely have to do, for instance he said I have to find a substitute and I'm not allowed to play the piano again until he says so. :( I can't mop the floor at all or drive more than I have to, but the promise of being done with this mess soon and non-surgically is awesome. And he says that I should be able to play golf this summer which I'm really excited about since we have such awesome courses here.

And the happiest thing of all is that my Mom is coming here in 16 days!!!

My new car!!!!!

This is just a picture I took off the net...my car doesn'thave those stupid wheels. But other than that this is the car we bought on saturday, a 1996 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited. Some of you might remember that we used to own a 93 that was blue, well when we saw this one we knew we couldn't pass it up. It's in absolutely perfect condition, with new tires and very well maintained. And it's grey on the inside, so it's perfect for us Buckeye Fans! I'm really really happy with it and incredibly relieved that we have a second car. We were making it work, but it was horrible. The family time was really nice, but I was driving for 4-5 hours everyday and the kids were with me for most of that and it was just too much. I'm trying really hard to avoid surgery and driving is something I'm supposed to limit if not avoid completely. I have to drive a little but now thankfully I don't have to be running around everywhere all the time. Hooray!! (I'm a little excited, can you tell?)

However I did something really bad on Friday--I don't know what I did exactly but I was trying to stretch my back at work and found a new stretch that I thought was great until suddenly I couldn't move and my arm went numb. It eased up after about an hour but I've been in absolutely incredible pain ever since. I'm laying here on my heating pad with my pain pills and still want to cry! (But on the bright side when the ambulance came to church yesterday to get the sister with shortness of breath and chest pain it wasn't ME! That may sound mean to those who don't know me, but it's happened before and I was happy to be on the helping the ambulance find the building end this time.) My appointment with the neurosurgeon is on the 10th so hopefully he'll give me some physical therapy and pain management techniques and shelve the surgery for now. I have lots of other things I'm doing now and this back thing is getting in the way. I got a raise at work, so I'd like to work a lot, I'm trying to get a few springcleaning/organizing things done and there's two rooms I'd like to paint. Not to mention some excersizing!

On that note however, I have great news--I bought new jeans on saturday and they are 2 sizes smaller than the ones I wore when I moved to Ohio. So I'm pretty happy about that! The girl scouts are trying to derail me though--drat those cookies!

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.

How SWEET it is!!!!

Wow. Can I just say, WOW. That was an awesome game!!! It was the best possible outcome I think. Not just that we won, but that we won decisively. You can't look at that game and say it was luck or anything like that. Everyone played well, and we played BETTER. I am incredibly proud to be a Ute.

In other news, we had our first Christmas in Ohio and it was nice. Weird, but nice. My parents came out the week before and we did all sorts of awesome stuff that my mom already wrote about on her blog. Christmas morning the kids woke up at a semi-reasonable time and found that the hallway to the livingroom was blocked with wrapping paper. Santa does this to prevent any sneaking of presents before parents are awake. So we broke through it and found that Santa came! The kids had lots of cool presents and new watches, I got Twilight books, and Chris got the best present any red blooded american 31 year old married grad student could wish for:

A Carol Channing Ventriloquist Doll

Seriously! It's so awesome! and a little scary... No really, I was with my mom and we couldn't fiure out what I should give him because anything he really wanted or needed was over my budget and I didn't want to get him something dumb like handkerchiefs (again...) and we turned a corner and there it was, the only one left, and 30% off. How could I resist?

We spent the next 4 days in post-Christmas bliss, the kids were playing with their new toys, Chris was doing, um, something, I unfortunately have absolutely no idea what anyone was doing because in case you didn't catch it before, I got two Twilight books for Christmas and in those 4 days I read them both...twice. I finally resurfaced Monday morning and dragged myself off to work to get my paycheck so I could afford the last book and immediately lose myself again. Which I did.

Now I need to see the movie...

Too tired for pictures

Hi Everybody!!! (psst...this is where you say, HI DR. NICK!) I just got home from work and I feel the need to tell you all about how much I love my job. No really, I do! The new location opened yesterday, and it's beautiful! It's in an office building in an area kind of like Sandy or Fort Union (only brand new construction), so the area is nice, the building is nice, all that stuff. I've been getting the place ready for about a week and a half now, cleaning and organizing and moving stuff in...made all the more difficult because last Tuesday (right before Thanksgiving) we were moving a cooler from the kitchen in Powell into the car to take it to Easton for the new cafe, (it's one of those glass fronted half size Pepsi cooler things), and something went wrong the first time I picked it up and I sprained my back. Yes, I said the first time I picked it up. I picked it up a few more times that day as well. I never said I was smart. so I've sprained my back really bad, and by the time I get home from work I feel like throwing up or passing out or just dying. But it's almost worth it to get this store going! I took some pictures of it on Wednesday, but the cord for the camera is not sitting next to me on the desk and I hurt too bad to go looking for it. so you'll have to wait a little longer for pictures (I'll get better ones on Monday anyway--we've added stuff).

But I have to say how much I love my job. We didn't tell anyone we were opening on Thursday--we just wanted to open our doors and see what happened while we're training ourselves on procedures and what these particular people are looking for. But we had people coming in before we even opened the doors and they never stopped! Today we frequently had lines out the door and down the hall (we're in our own little suite right by the door to the courtyard between buildings where an inordinate amount of people go to smoke--so they all see us), and we barely kept up. we ran out of soup on both days, roast beef, parmesan, provolone, buffalo chicken, and nearly out of containers. It was awesome. I hope this keeps up because all day, even though I really was in a lot of pain, I kept thinking how lucky I was to have this job and how satisfied and happy I am. Also my boss has already had several problems and surgery on his own back, so he's very understanding and careful that I'm doing what I should be doing (I'm not allowed to lift more than 15lbs, etc). I'm just really really happy!

Oh yeah, and because I mentioned this in the last post I thought I should let you know that we caught things in time and Zoe is Spot Free! Hooray! She's a snotty little thing, but I'm told that that's genetic...^_^

Jimmy's Birthday Party is tomorrow--I told Chris that I'd need more help than usual because I can't move very well and he said, "oh yeah, I forgot to tell you I have somewhere to be at that exact time..." and I said, "that's okay, you can take all 7 five-year-olds with you then!" I hope 7. I only had 2 people tell me yes, so who knows if the other 4 will come or not?

Speaking of that, I need to actually stand up now so I can take Zoe to Walmart with me before Jimmy gets home. Poor kid. I've NEVER actually made his birthday cake. ME. NEVER. He doesn't care though, and thank goodness for that because a big cake hurts my back on the best of days...I can't even imagine what would happen if I tried now!

update

Sorry sorry sorry. I'm very busy. And I'm sick. I'm very busy and sick. And I found a new version of online sudoku which takes up all my computer time. (I mean lets be honest here).

I don't have a lot of time, I have to go to work in ten minutes, but I feel bad I haven't said anything about anything for weeks. so here's a really fast update from Ohio:

My job is great and perfect except for the fact that the new location hasn't opened yet, which means much less money than there should be. Hopefully that will all change very very soon and we will be able to breathe a little easier! Chris finally got a paycheck though, and that's very nice indeed. Also my boss has agreed to sell my faerie cakes at one of the other locations as well as the new one that I'll be in charge of, so that's really cool. I brought in the first bit of them yesterday so I'm anxious to see how they do.

Halloween is MESSED UP here, we were lucky that our neighborhood had trick or treating actually on the 31st, a lot of places didn't, but even then, the time was restricted to 6-8pm, so it wasn't even dark. And on top of that, the whole process was jacked. The best part of Halloween is the walking around the neighborhood in the dusky darkness, knocking on doors and waiting suspensefully for them to open up so you can yell "trick or treat" and then the nice old people say "oh how cute you all are! you scared me!" but no. no fun surprises here in Ohio. You walk along the sidewalk, and every driveway has people in it sitting in lawn chairs with a bowl of candy. You walk up to them, maybe say trick or treat if you feel like it, and they give you candy. then you walk to the next driveway, and the next, and the next. It was weird and dumb. I was thinking all of this as we were going, but I wasn't going to say anything because I didn't think the kids would care all that much (I mean, they were getting a TON of candy for no work at all), but then they both started complaining that it wasn't any fun because they weren't surprising anyone, and Zoe said it was like the cafeteria at her school (which I thought was pretty astute of her). Then they decided they were tired (after only about 30 minutes) and they wanted to go home and go to bed. Early. Oh well, good for me I suppose.

I also had my first choir rehearsal on sunday (I'm the new choir director in case I forgot to tell some of you) and it went very well, I had 4 TENORS and even 2 basses. Unfortunately the Bishop didn't approve all the music I wanted, he said that even though "Though in the Outward Church Below" was in the old hymnbook and was very pretty and upbeat, it still had a "little too much Hell and Damnation" for sacrament meeting. So I said, "but what's Easter without some Damnation?" I got a rather interesting look for that one. Oh well. We're still doing "Come thou Fount of Every Blessing" for Thanksgiving so I'm pleased.

Zoe is out of school (yesterday and today) so I'm taking her to work with me. Poor kid, doesn't even get a vacation! At least it's better than sending her to school with Chris!

Oh yeah, and I have strep, and as soon as I was officially diagnosed I called and got Zoe an antibiotic too, but I found a bunch of spots on her head last night so lets all hope and pray that we caught it in time...I really really don't want her to have to deal with a full break out this first year at the new school.

And last but not least, it's November 4th, so go VOTE!!! I know there's an election because in the last week I've had at least 4 calls EVERY DAY from Edward Norton, Michelle Obama, Obama himself, several Kennedys, and lots of random people from Obama's campaign offices. All with the helpful information of where my voting location is. Funnily enough, I haven't heard a single word from the republicans. I want this over just so everyone can calm down.

mmm...food...

I know right? Stare at it long enough and you start drooling...or noticing that the burger looks rather dry which only leads to fantasizing about the many different ways to dress it up that happen to be in your fridge RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, so we're dieting. kind of. Alright, Chris is dieting and I'm too lazy to not to. Why is Chris dieting? Cause I'd rather not put him through school just to have him die of heart disease and diabetes the minute he graduates. So we're watching calories and cholesterol and sugar, and we've learned a new appreciation for our wonderful friend Tivo that lets us fast forward the food commercials. We're doing well, probably mostly because Chris is too busy to eat anything at all, and I'm, again, too lazy to cook with him gone all the time so I just eat salad.

Which reminds me that I haven't written in so long you guys don't even know about my job! My job is completely awesome and I honestly don't know how I got so lucky to get the perfect job, but I did. I work for Dish Mobile Cafe, which brings food into small office buildings that don't have their own restuarants. I'm helping out at a few different locations right now, but in a few weeks I'm going to be managing a new location closer to my house with more hours and better pay than right now, but I'll still be able to put Zoe on the bus and be back with Jimmy by the time she gets home.

Which, in turn, brings me to Zoe. and the bus. The school bus. The big mean school bus full of bullies. I opened the door to meet the bus this afternoon and found that it had just come and all the kids were converging on my lawn (with their mothers) around my poor crying baby. My first thought (other than that the bus was insanely early) was that she'd been hit by the bus, but no, she'd been hit by another kid. It's raining a lot today, and at a big turn she'd lost control of her umbrella and it got a little too close to a bigger girl across the aisle. When this girl passed Zoe to get off at her stop she punched her several times in the leg while yelling unintelligibly. When I got her inside and looked at it it was red and swollen and fist shaped, but it's gone down considerably. Now I know that lots could have happened as far as provocation, but since all the other kids were telling me this girl completely flipped out over nothing, I have to believe them. I called the school and the bus driver supervisors and they said they'd figure out which girl it is (it shouldn't be hard since the buses have assigned seats and we know which stop she gets off at) and talk to the principal. She didn't tell the driver at the time because her regular driver wasn't there and she says they don't do anything anyway. I suppose this is just regular kid bullying and all, but this is my BABY and I'm going to make a big stink about it.

Also, I'm coming to SLC weekend after next to testify at the hearing. I don't remember if I've said much about that here, but Judy (shudder) is suing Buffy (from Haxton Manor), saying that she broke her wrist at work and so Buffy and the state should pay for it. I'm really really unhappy about the whole situation, but I get to go home for a couple days (and Jimmy's coming with me) so that's good. I'm still not sure that it makes up for the inconvenience and uncomfortableness and mess of it all though.

I think I'm going to go to sleep now though, and maybe then I can wake up when Chris gets home from rehearsal instead of falling asleep right when he gets home.