A day at the Doctor... and other stuff

Let me just say that I am SO thankful to have made it to my senior year relatively unscathed. I mean, yeah, I've had my ups and downs in life, some downs that most teenagers don't ever experience - but thanks to GOD, here I am! A senior in high school, and completely loving the idea of school starting in less than two weeks !! I am so blessed to have the opportunity to be schooled and to have made it so far in my education with nothing below a high C in any of my classes I've taken, ever and with a positive attitude towards school and everything that comes along with it. I yearn for the high school experience yet at the same time, I am ready to leave and go on to do bigger and better things in college life !!

Anyways, what brought on that little bit of inspiration was the fact that I registered for my SENIOR YEAR today. =] Lemme tell you - it wasn't fun, but I was VERY happy that I would not have to ever have to register for High School ever again [and so was my mom, because I'm the youngest child !!]. I'm looking forward to this year, like, a lot !!

After the painfully dull registration from 8:30 - 9:30 AM, I had a doctor's appointment. I have this very bad problem with my back. The bones in my neck are backwards, I have the beginnings of arthritis in my middle back, and Spina Bifida in my lower back [though too low to cause me any pain, hopefully]. Not to mention, that [partially] because of my backwards neck, my spine is almost completely straight. Now, the first Orthopedist [bone doctor] that I went to placed alot of emphasis on my neck bones and strengthening my upper back muscles. Now, this led to extreme lower back pain and my knee pain increased. He then declared [without x-rays] that I had Patello Femoral Pain Syndrome in my knees. There was a big mess and confusion with physical therapy, so we decided to get a second opinion. And I'm really glad we did. This doctor that I saw today looked at my x-rays and said that the fact that my neck was backwards was not a big deal, I was born that way, it happens. So that was a relief. Then he said that I had hardly ANY beginnings of arthritis in my spine, and no reason to worry because it doubtfully would turn into arthritis of any kind. Phew! Another relief! He confirmed that the slight Spina Bifida should not cause me any difficulty. What he was most concerned about was the fact that I have virtually no curvature in my spine. He took a look at the vertebrae in my lower spine [lumbar] and said that he was concerned that I might have Degenerative Disk Disease, and he wanted to do an MRI because you can't see the disks in between your vertebrae in an x-ray.

What Degenerative Disk Disease [DDD] is, well, the way he described it, is that your disks are like sponges, soft and... well spongey when wet, but sometimes sponges get all dried out. That can happen to your disks when there is too much pressure on them or they are forced to compensate for something else. When a sponge gets dried out, it gets hard and brittle, right? Well, that's what can happen to your disks. And that is the brief description of DDD.

Anyway, that out of the way, I can continue. So, we went to schedule an MRI and POOF! There was an opening for 1 PM today. Well, at this point it was already 12:25, and you have to be there 15 minutes early. We grabbed the appointment and were handed some information about MRI's to answer any questions I might have had. So, at this point I was a little nervous. I mean, you always hear about MRIs being those things they do to scan for cancer. I was reading the thing and found out that an MRI can take a minimum of 1 hour !! dang. that is a LONG time to sit inside a tuby thing while the machine is taking pictures of your insides while you don't move [definatly not good for clausterphobics]. But, I went and got it done, and it only took 45 minutes [heck yes, I defeated the paper !!], and it went by way faster than I thought it would. No big deal, nothing happened to me. But, we didnt get out of there until 1:45, and we had been gone since 8:15 in the morning... not to mention we were hungry because we didnt eat breakfast. So we stopped at Arbys and got some lunch and went home. We watched The Secret Life of the American Teenager [good show, btw], and then I went to reading my book - Jane Eyre. That's what I've been doing for a while, and it made me stinkin' cry already !! It's a good book, a little slow going, but definatly worth reading. I'm only on chapter 11, but still - pure excellence. I'm getting ready to watch Bones with my mom, read some more, then get ready to take my Senior Pictures tomorrow afternoon !! Shower, curl hair, lay out outfits, etc, etc.
Well, that's all I have for you today !! God Bless and I hope you had an amazing day, and I hope you continue on to have an amazing night !!


Love always,
Michelle


Verse of the Day: Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.
~ Philippians 4:8