Things have moved along a bit in Roy’s back pain journey. Last Thursday we went to Hammond to see Dr. Rochelle, pain management doctor. He is a very thorough, informative and kind doctor. He had access to Roy’s MRI and reviewed it with us. The picture below is one of the slides from Roy’s MRI. It’s one that shows Roy’s spinal canal with plenty of space for the nerves near the top of the picture. It also shows the constriction in the lower portion of his spinal canal. The oval circle is where the compression is.
He will give Roy an epidural steroid injection, tentatively on Monday, December 2nd at 11 am. If our insurance doesn’t approve it by Monday the injection date will change.
Physical Therapy was approved. Roy will start that next Wednesday, December 4th at Kelsey Physical Therapy in Amite.
One of the things Dr. LaFleur said Roy had to do was stop smoking. We went to the North Oaks smoking cessation appointment this week. They have funding from a smoking cessation trust so their services and any medicine he takes to help with stopping smoking are FREE! My wonderful hubby stopped smoking cold turkey a week before the appointment. We’ll be prescribed Wellbutrin and will have counseling sessions as time goes on. We’re waiting for his primary care doctor, who is on vacation this week, to approve the prescription and Roy will get started on it probably next week. This is a big deal for Roy who has been smoking since he was a teenager.
As time has gone on and Roy has been resting, his pain has subsided some to where he doesn’t take the pain medicine any longer. He’s pushed himself physically the last couple of days to see how that would affect him. He hasn’t done anything terribly strenuous and his pain has only increased a bit. He still has constricted nerves but at least the pain has gone down considerably. Big answer to prayers.
Two weeks after the epidural steroid injection we will go to see Dr. LaFleur to see where everything stands. Roy also goes to the vascular surgeon on December 12th about the blood circulation around the aneurysm.
The only really great thing about all of these doctor visits is that I’ve had lots of places to hide rocks!
We’ll keep ya’ll updated!
BECAUSE HE LIVES 