GAWildKat
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Posts posted by GAWildKat
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Ironically both my wife and my best friends wife have Chiari Malformations. My friends wife is much more severe than my wife's, she had to have the corrective surgery two years ago and has seen many improvements in her life since then. My wife is monitored with annual MRI's and a visit with the neurologist.
My friends wife is pregnant now and expecting a baby boy in March.
Best of luck to you! We will keep you in our thoughts and prayers.
I have an 8mm chiari 1, I'm told that's usually pretty bad. I would love to talk with someone who has this and even if possible get feedback about the surgery and/or nonsurgical route as well. I have a lot of educating myself to do in the coming weeks as well. I figure if I have lived with it this long it's not going to blow up anytime soon either.
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I'm with Yammer on this. Thankfully, techniques have improved tremendously in the years we've been around.
Tricia, the most important information I've read so far this past year is for you to ask lots and lots of questions. Advocate for yourself! Question the doc, question the procedure, get second opinions on both the docs, the hospital and the procedure. Keep asking until you feel comfortable with the hospital, the docs and the procedure. Then and only then, make your decision whether to do it or not. Feel free to send your MRI scans to other docs around country and ask for their opinions as well. Between University teaching facilities to the Mayo type clinics there are a lot of choices. Some docs have tons of experience doing cases like yours, others not so many. That's what your questions need to weed out.
Prayers for you added to my nightly list!
david
You are correct on all points. I am very good at asserting myself with medical stuff. After all this could be my 8th surgery in 15 yrs. I'm going to be very cautious with this stuff, and yes, getting at least 2 opinions is in my plans. I will do my best to be referred to Emory as well. Have a friend trying to get me to be referred to to a hospital in Cincinnati as well, but that's a bit far for me to travel.
But it was very neat looking at my MRIs yesterday, I got copies of them last week. I could see the brain damage from my birth injury and it wasn't at all like one of my previous family docs said it was.
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Brightside is my head isn't going to blow up next week or next month. It is what it is.
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Three types of operations scare the bejesus out of me: Spinal, joints and brain.
Spinal because of chance of paralysis, Joints because once they go in it seems they're never the same, and brain....well, brain speaks for itself.
That "opening the base of your skull for more room" doesn't sound like fun at all!
I'm not a religious man, but sending you my best wishes for a successful procedure and a speedy recovery.
I agree with you on all those points. My mom fell 20-25ft from a deerstand when I was 7, broke her back at L5/S1 refused to have surgery then because she knew the prognosis postop. Fast forward 7yrs to 1988 and she had no choice but to have surgery. Her recovery was slow and unfortunately not complete. We learned later the neurosurgeon who was assisting on the case didn't want to do the surgery as it wasn't the right surgery for her injury. I hope my prognosis is MUCH better than hers was then. Heck, I'm scared they may tell me to stop riding bikes or living dangerously lol. I may decide against surgery to keep my independence. I don't know yet.
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Gee, hadn't noticed that you are stubborn at all...couldn't tell at all. I hope you get legit relief soon and are back to your normal stubborn self. Pain is never fun.
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Some of you lovely people know that right after Mike and I came home I saw a neurologist. My migraines had become more severe in the weeks before and after Vogel. I have had migraines since I was at least 2 years old and have tried almost every med out there for migraines and some that aren't. Everyone who has treated my migraines almost all agree that my migraines were related to the cerebral palsy and brain damage I had at birth. The neurologist ordered an MRI of my head. I have some brain damage (we knew that right?) But a brain malformation called a chiari 1 was discovered on the MRI, more MRIs of my head and neck were ordered.
I'm still learning what a chiari is, but the basic thing is my brain was too big for my skull and part of it grew down into my spinal neck area and causes me to have headaches when I sneeze and such, maybe even the migraines as well.
It's something I was likely born with and wasn't commonly diagnosed when I was little so it's easy to understand why it was missed back then.
What does this mean for me you ask? I dunno yet. Likely surgery to open room at the base of my skull to relieve the pressure on my brain. My neurologist has referred me to the Medical College of Georgia to be evaluated by their doctors. I see one of their neurologists on Dec 4th.
I won't lie, I'm scared to death of the idea of brain surgery. My mom was a surgical tech and worked speciality cases like brain surgery and spinal procedures. Dinner talk was the interesting and scary cases she had that day. I can handle the idea of working on almost any other body part of me, but brain surgery can get screwed up and the person you were before surgery is not the same after. We have chosen not to tell family anything til we know more about what the next few months and year might be like. We felt especially, that Mike's Mom didn't need to know anything until we know what the next steps will be.
Prayers and blessings will be appreciated.
If you read through my post this far, thank you for sticking with me til the end here. I felt the need to discuss this scary stuff somewhere.
Tricia
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If your back went out you need to be seen by someone sooner rather than later. It could be nothing more than a muscle injury, however if you have numbness and tingling anywhere, go to the doctor ASAP, that would be more akin to compression of the nerves somewhere. Hope you feel better soon. Pain is no fun!
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Love sometimes isn't enough either. My husband will move mountains to make sure I know it too and always has. But life can sometimes kick you down enough for long enough that it seems you can never climb back out of the hell you are in. Even antidepressants sometimes aren't even enough to overcome it either. I never attempted suicide, but I walked the knife's edge for almost 10 yrs. My personal life was hell and in shambles. I didn't think it would ever improve either. Too many people passed judgement based on what they heard then and never really understood the hell we were living. Even my judgemental inlaws more or less wrote us off. Even when we tell the truth my mother in law can't accept it and asks the same thing each time she speaks to Mike. Depression if you have never experienced it sucks. Add PTSD in and life is just down right scary. I was diagnosed with PTSD after my exhusband and I divorced, yes, he was abusive. But my therapist realized it was deeper than just him. I had been emotionally and verbally abused growing up and there were real problems between my mother and me that lasted. I'm better now and don't need the meds anymore. I don't wake in the middle of the night having panic attacks anymore. And life is better now. But it's not easy.
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Last month I was summoned for jury duty in superior court starting yesterday. I was medically excused. Saturday I was summoned to serve in state court next month. Again, I will be medically excused. Georgia no longer takes people for the jury pools from just voter registration. Your state issued license or ID marks you for the pool. Car registrations, and bills can also be used to locate potential jurors as I was informed today. The jury pools are also selected in Atlanta and the local county has no way to track pool members who were selected for duty in a different court within the same county.
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I too know the dangers of Salt, growing up in the deep south, EVERYTHING is salted I swear, before it's brought to the table. I keep salt in the house, but not for me. I never salt stuff unless it's in a spice blend I'm using. I made boneless pork chops last night. Sprinkled some meat tenderizer over them and baked em in their marinade. I about killed over from how salty they are. The meat tenderizer has salt as the 1st ingredient! I remember this brand not having a lot of salt when I was a kid. Everyone else liked dinner, but I gagged on the salt.
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Rubber mallet and some patience.
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Yeah. You won't see classified ads with tapatalk unless you go to that subforum, dunno why either.
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Hey, Patricia, thanks for getting back.
I'd have to guess (by your signature, at least) that you seem to be a real "renaissance girl"...not to mention a genuine multi-talented persona. (i.e. anyone who works on computers, likes motorcycles and will get their hands dirty under the hood HAS to be a good person!)
Please tell me if the following are true or false:
1. Tapatalk somehow(?) allows "easier access" to vBulleting-powered forums
2. The free version of Tapatalk, however, does NOT accommodate posting....only reading
3. The benefit of using Tapatalk is that it precludes the need to fire up ones browser in order to access forums (or does it apply to entire websites?)
Thank you for the compliments. I do design and build customized computers as a hobby, as I retired on disability at age 26 (disability sucks btw lol). I have no problem tearing into the guts of a car or bike as long as I'm physically able to manage the task at hand. Getting dirty isn't a worry so long as there's lava soap or that orange scrub stuff around. But tell that to some prissy girl lol. Mostly I'm the task manager at home who orders the misc bike and car parts for whatever project needs fixing, designing the latest computer my husband "needs" as well as housekeeper and sometimes cook. And I try to manage that between all the doc appts. My life isn't horribly busy, but it feels like it some days. And I'm jealous, you got to visit the UK and Ireland, both are on my bucket list before I get to where I can't enjoy those trips.
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On Great White's points he is correct. I also have the paid version I bought it a few yrs ago. However, last year tapatalk became a free to use app for devices last year. So no paying for it anymore. If you are on an android device you can download it from the play store. I highly suggest setting up a tapatalk account if you use both a tablet and a phone to browse the internet. A tapatalk account will save your forum settings across your mobile devices, and is a great idea if you upgrade phones regularly. The account will log you into your forum accounts and save your information to be used across all mobile devices.
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Tapatalk is an app you use to view forums like this one on your Mobile device, such as a tablet or smartphone. If you were browsing the forums with a mobile device that's why you got a notice to use tapatalk. I personally like it. But it takes getting used to. I'm using tapatalk to post my response and view your post. Did that help or more questions needed?
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I've only been to 2 basspros ever, one in SW Missouri, and my local one here in Macon GA. The one locally is kinda boring, 5mins after walking in, you're done with the tour. The one in Missouri is omg, more like Condor's experience. If most basspro shops were like the one I visited in Missouri, then I'm up for a tour of them all.
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I'm voting for Wv, dunno if we will make it, but this way if I wanna go beat Dan with my skillet I have an excuse..."I was just in the area and thought you needed a lesson in behaving..." Lol
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Ouch! That's painful! I live a couple of hrs from their warehouse, and I still can't drive there and back as cheaply as it is to ship stuff to the house. So keep that in mind too!
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Stay safe while you are there and come back whole!
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I voted based on what I know for next yr. Mike and I will probably have to stay semilocal for the next yr in our travels. With his Dad's mental and physical health in decline, I don't want to be so far from home that we are more than a day's drive from home if we can help it. That said we will try to make maintainance day and IR if it's a reasonable trip. That said I wouldn't want anyone to try to swing the vote to attempt to make the IR regionally closer to us. There will (hopefully) be other rallies we can do in the future if next yr doesn't work out.
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You learn a lot about your local leos when you have friends and or family on the force. In my case I have both. Sadly it's the family I have on the force that aren't worthy of the badge. The couple who adopted our youngest son were friends of ours before the adoption and still are now. He works on the force and is a reservist. She stays at home to make sure our son is well cared for. He is a great leo and someone we are glad to know. I hate him being on the streets in one of the most dangerous cities in the south, but it's his chosen profession.
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Maggie Valley or Mississippi coast for me.
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Being a bit younger...I don't have any neat stories abt places I worked. However, I worked on my Dad's "hobby farm" from the time I was 4 until I was 12 when he sold it. I did a bit of everything from fieldhand to logger. I was unpaid slave labor I tell ya! Just kidding. I enjoyed farm life. My first paid job was dishwasher at pizza hut. I think I lasted a bit more than a week before my back informed me that all that heavy lifting wasn't going to do. The job though that lasted the longest was Chick-fil-A. I lasted 5 years there and while I often hated the younger coworkers; I was grateful to the original owners of my store. They went out of their way to make sure I as a disabled person could do my job and treated me well. They were tough on everyone but fair. I was never made to feel I was hired to fill a quota.
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You cannot see these options using tapatalk. You have to login on the webpage to pay the dues.
Thought I'd throw this out there. (Medical stuff)
in Watering Hole
Posted · Edited by GAWildKat
I think what's really scary is I might be bald for a while, I just cannot see myself with a chrome dome. Mike's actually taken the news better than I have, which is unusual. I'm not sure what that means. I'm the one usually keeping him calm and convincing him that I'll be ok.