Claustrophobic Chrissy's Open MRI Anxiety

So, I have seen pictures of the open MRI. Wish I didn’t look now because its completely not what I expected!

To be honest I don’t really know what I expected I guess I thought it was like a shallow donut type machine that you went through with your legs out one end and your head out there other, so you were looking out at the ceiling. But it doesn’t look like that in the pictures. It has open sides but then still what looks to me like a low top. I can handle closed sides but I seem to HATE the feeling of not being able to sit if I really really needed too.

I know its weird, I know I am very weird.. but ARGHHH. And my mum cant come with me coz she has to work and I have some lovely friends at work who have offered to come but I think that they might make me laugh and I think I would also feel self conscious, maybe I will ask my dad but I ask him for so many favours I feel abit bad.

Fancy this, worried about an OPEN MRI when I have a whole bucket load of surgery that will be 10 million trillon times worse.

I am feeling pretty anxious a lot at the moment I am blowing everything up into such a huge deal. I feel like I have constantly had a huge amount of caffeine and it’s a sick wired feeling and its horrible. I had to take a valium at work yesterday and I hadn’t taken any of that for a while and it made me feel so weird and drunk I fell up the stairs on the way to a meeting. Was fun though, I would prefer to feel like that and chilled.

I have my follow up meeting with Mr Stewart Tucker booked on Monday 7March, which is the day my beloved Timiney Cricket gets back. He arrives into Gatwick at about 11am and my appointment is at 15.15, I really hope he can make it as my mum cant because she is in Boston, of course my Dad will be there supporting me but im pretty sure Tim will have some good questions up his sleeve.

I decided against going back for my Theraflex appointment today I emailed and cancelled and explained how I will now be having surgery, but I will definitely go back and see her if I do get any pain between now and then.

Got my Open MRI date

The date of my MRI is Wednesday 2March at 9.40am. I am going to brave it and go alone at my mum is working. Things are progressing!

100 Scoliosis Surgery Questions

So I got a brilliant email last night from my best friend’s brother answering all my questions on Scoliosis Surgery, and the poor boy had A LOT of questions to answer.

He was so upbeat and positive, and has just made me feel 100x’s better about everything. I wont copy the whole email over as I don’t have his permission but here is a couple of sentence’s that made me realize that if I was having any doubts I would be silly to pay attention to them.

“I would DEFINITELY have the op again if I needed to, and do not regret it AT ALL. Apart from the physical benefits in the long run, friends said there was a noticeable difference in my personality and mood”

“I know its really hard, but the best thing is to probably prepare yourself (like you are), but not WORRY too much - you'll end up a wreck if you constantly worry between now and your op! In probably about a years time, you'll be saying what a great life experience it was and how much it changed you for the better. ;) Theres ups and downs, like with anything, but its totally worth it all in the end.”

How wonderful is that?!!!!

Also I got a call from Sharon, Mr StewartTucker’s secretary and she told me he has referred me to Harley Street for my open MRI and I should hear from them within the next couple of days and then I need to make a follow up appointment with Mr StewartTucker and my parents and hopefully Tim my boyfriend (if he is back from NZ).

My big aim between now and mid April is to get everything sorted out. MRI, get Bupa to sign off my surgery, set a date for the op and talk to work once all that is sorted then hopefully I can just relax in Thailand on holiday, I REALLY don’t want anything hanging over me (obviously the impending doomsday will still be there!! J)

Open MRI Soon

Just a quick update. I called Stewart Tucker’s assistant to chase the open MRI details, as with Bupa you need to get approval and stuff, and she said she will get back to me tomorrow and the appointment should be pretty immediate. ARGHH Nervous!! I almost want to wait until my boyfriend is there so he can come, but I might be able to persuade my dad instead to come and brave London.

Valium will come in so handy. Why am I so scared of MRI machines! This one will be open!. BREATHE CHRISSY

Theraflex Therapy

So I had a lovely weekend in Amsterdam. The weather was freezing but very sunny.

Pretty much the whole weekend I didn’t even really think about my impending spinal surgery (arghh) which I think it really good as last week I couldn’t think of much else.

This week I have decided it is my mission to chase up Mr Stewart Tucker's secretary and find out when my MRI scan is due to take place as I really don’t want to be left wondering things when I go on my holiday in April I want a fresh clear mind to enjoy the final months with my curly back, if it’s even possible to enjoy having Scoliosis.

I briefly mentioned before how I have been trying Theraflex therapy. It really did help with pain relief as I started it in the first week of January and didn’t get any pain again until the first week of February. I was abit sad as I naively thought it was a ‘cure’, I thought it would, after time, magically make my curve shrink but after seeing Mr Stewart Tucker I really believe that the only way that is possible is with surgery. I do however think that the Theraflex machine is marvelous and I also do believe it is brilliant at pain relief. I have no doubt that I would recommend this treatment for someone who suffers with back pain but I have my doubts that this would affect the degree of curvature in someone with large curve.

I have a Theraflex appointment on Friday and at £52 a session and a 3hr roundtrip to get there I don’t know whether I should bother going now.

I don’t suffer with too much back pain, its manageable, it doesn’t affect my life in too many ways, yes its uncomfortable now and again but everyone gets aches and pains. I think I could live with my Scoliosis if I knew that it would stay this way, I would use Theraflex to treat the aches and pains and I am sure I would lead a happy normal life. What I do need to remind myself is that my curve is getting worse, in 10yrs time it will be about 10-15degrees more severe and I am sure it will impact greatly on my day to day life. Probably then I will decide I have had enough of the pain and deformity and then the operation will be harder and more difficult to correct and my healing time will probably be longer as I will be abit older.

It seems like most people get the surgery because they are in vast amounts of pain and so I do sometimes stop and think that because I am not in ‘so’ much pain, maybe this surgery is unnecessary. I bet if I was having back ache today then this whole blog would be written completely differently. Easy to forget how much the pain hurts when your not currently feeling it.

Someone else was in the same boat

So turns out that my best friends brother had a very similar surgery last year and I have been in contact over facebook about what to expect. He is only about 17ish and he seems really upbeat about the whole thing which has made me feel pretty positive.

To be honest all I can seem to think about at the moment is this operation and I really think I just want to get it out of the way as soon as I can. When I got my tattoo the worst part was sitting in the waiting room waiting to get it done, that was worse than the tattoo pain itself, and I feel even though the waiting and being scared is probably no where near the amount of pain I will experience after this operation but it could be unnecessary as if I had the op this afternoon then I would miss out most of the scaredness first.

Anyway I am rambling.. still awaiting my MRI appointment and then I should get a better idea of when this bloody thing is gonna take place.

Welcome to my Scoliosis World!

Hello,

My name is Chrissy I am 28yrs old and the reason I have decided to write this blog is because I have very recently decided to have Spinal Surgery to try and treat my Scoliosis.

I was diagnosed with Scoliosis when I was about 12 or 13years old at school during a routine test. No one had ever noticed it before and it didn’t bother me as I didn’t notice any symptoms. I used to go for check ups and xrays every 6 months or so and I really don’t remember paying too much attention to it all. To be honest I was more bothered about going through puberty and taking my top off in front of doctors, in fact the more I think about it the more I remember how incredibly uncomfortable that used to make me (it really didn’t matter that my dad used to say “don’t worry Chris, they just see you as a machine”). When I got to maybe 16 I noticed that my right hip stuck out more than me left one and I kinda just stopped bothering to go to the drs.

As I have gotten old the back pain has slowly increased, I have recently been trying the Theraflex therapy for the pain and hoping it would help to straighten me out but unfortunately as pain increased I decided to go back and visit a specialist. Luckily I have private medical cover so I googled away and after reading some wonderful reviews I decided to visit Stewart Tucker at The Wellington Hospital in London.

At my appointment Mr Tucker took a look at my spine and did a brief exam he also looked at the xrays I had done 18months previously and requested I got some done that day which he then compared. Unfortunately it wasn’t the best news as the curves (2 x 60degrees, my spine is a big S) have got slightly bigger and in his expert opinion they will continue to do so at a rate of about 1 – 2degree’s per year which in 10 years time would be an even bigger problem than it is now.

So Mr Tucker thinks surgery will be a good idea, he said if I leave it 10yrs and then decide to have surgery (which I guess I probably would as the pain will probably get worse along with the curve) the operation will be an even bigger job.

Next step is to get an open MRI (along with being all twisted in the spine, I also have a little bit of claustrophobia, which I found out about when I tried to have a horrible closed in MRI) and then have an appointment with Mr Tucker and my parents and partner to discuss the operation and any questions.

ARGHHHHHHH

I have been reading blogs on the internet and this surgery doesn’t seem like fun!!!