An update on Derek.

So as you may or may not know, Derek has been having some issues with his back.  About a month and a half ago he lost all feeling in his right foot and was having a little bit of pain in his lower back.  The back pain was nothing new, Derek has suffered back pain for several years but it was the loss of sensation in his foot that alarmed us.  After a week of it not getting better he went to the Dr. and the circus began....

I honestly feel like the last month and a half has been a crazy circus, jumping through hoops, constant ups and downs and surprises around every corner!  His Dr. ordered all sorts of bloodwork and tests to be ran, along with an EMG and an MRI.  At the first visit he told Derek "We really need to get on this otherwise even with surgery you may walk like this for the rest of your life."  Scary words for anyone to hear!  Along with a battery of tests, he also told Derek that he didn't want him working until they figured out what was wrong, but since he "wanted to get right on it" we didn't think that missing a few days of work would hurt.  Boy were we wrong!!!  A few days ended up turning into a month of no work, but thankfully as of a week ago he has been released to go back to light duty.  (Not sure what exactly "light duty" for tree trimming is, but evidently it includes a lot of raking and busy work that can become increasingly frustrating for a man who is used to just jumping in and getting the job done!  Thank goodness Derek is taking the Dr's orders to heart though and he is trying not to push himself too much.) 

Anyways, getting back on track...So when we left the Dr's office after getting the innitial test results back I began the task of getting all of his appointments and consultations figured out and scheduled.  He had a high red blood cell count (so high that the Dr. was afraid that he was at a high risk for heart attack or stroke), high blood pressure (through the ROOF!!), and a high protein enzyme in his blood that was thought to be causing muscle cramping in his legs and ultimatly causing the numbness..  So we went home and I got busy on the phone getting appointments scheduled because ya know, we wanted to "get right on it!"  The first phone call I made was to the Oncologist/Hematologist to see about his red blood cell count.  The first appointment we could get was for 4 weeks out.  Seriously!?!?  Evidently if a patient may have a potentially life threatening blood disorder it takes 4 weeks at the minimum to see what's going on.  Rediculous!  The second call I made was to the Rheumatologist to see what was going on with the high protein enzyme...the soonest appointment with them was also 4 weeks out, but they agreed to squeeze us in a week sooner if we could be there at 7 am.  No problem, Derek was happy to get up at 3 am to head to the University of Missouri in Columbia to see a Rheumatologist about a high protein enzyme causing cramps in his leg which MIGHT be causing the numbness in his foot, because at least we were doing our best at "getting right on it," right?  ;)

In the meantime while we were waiting on the Oncologist and Rheumatologist we figured that we would at least be able to get the EMG and MRI out of the way.  Nope, WRONG AGAIN!  Apparently it takes a referral nurse (who seems to be on a continual vacation) at least 2 weeks to even contact the insurance company to see if they will cover the affore mentioned tests.  Boy, I sure would like to have her job :)  So after I called her, probably more persistantly than I should have, she finally let us know that she was waiting on a reply from the insurance company as to whether or not they would cover the EMG & MRI.  Finally the EMG was approved, and they were able to get us in, but not for a week.  Ok, we would take whatever they had!!  Once the EMG results came back Derek's Dr. was able to tell us that he was about 99% sure that he would be needing surgery.  According to the results, his L4 & L5 were herniated and pinching the nerve that controled his right foot.  Armed with this information, he still wanted to wait on the results of the MRI that we were still waiting to schedule before he referred us to anyone who could really tell us anything deffinitave.  The MRI was approved and scheduled a week later (big surprise, I know) and those results confirmed that the L4 & L5 were infact herniated, and would more than likely require surgery to be repaired. 

Ok, so that brings us up to about a week ago.  We were able to get a referral to U of M to an Orthopedic Specialist, although the referral nurse (the one always on vacation) told us that he was an Orthopedic Surgeon.  She said that she would send up the images from his MRI so that they could review them for the appointment and that I should call the office at U of M to schedule the appointment later that day.  So when we got home I called up to their office to get the appointment scheduled and they were pretty darn efficient.  I could tell immediatly that they ran a much tighter ship than the backwoods Warsaw clinic.  They set us an appointment for 2 days out, which was yesterday.  So we got everyone up and on the road bright and early to head back to Columbia for another 15 minute appointment, and of course the first question the Dr. asked was "Do you have a copy of your MRI?"  Seriously, that stinkin nurse couldn't send the images before she left on vacation again?  You've got to be kidding me!!!  Nope, we drove all the way up there for the Orthopedic Specialist to tell us not only would he not be able to do anything without seeing the images from the MRI, but that HE wouldn't be able to make the final call because HE wasn't the surgeon!!!!  I seriously wanted to wring that referral nurses neck (although she is a really sweet woman, just not very on the ball.)  Thank goodness the staff at U of M is extremely on the ball, the Dr. just walked across the hall and asked the Surgeon, who we were supposed to be seeing in the first place, what his opinion was.  He came back to let us know that we would need to have an actual consult with the Surgeon after he was able to look at the MRI results.  Knowing that we really needed to "get on it" they graciously offered to open the office EARLY for us this morning to squeeze us in so we didn't have to hurry up and wait anymore :)  So we drove home from Columbia yesterday afternoon, went straight to the hospital to get copies of the MRI on a disc, came home to go to sleep and get up at 3 am again this morning to go back to Columbia to meet with the Surgeon.  I have to say that all of this driving was made much easier by the fact that we had renewed faith in the Missouri medical community after our experiences with the staff at U of M.  They are just top notch in my opinion!!!

So, here we are, home from yet another 15 minute appointment that was several hours travel away, but at least we have answers and a plan!!!  Derek will be having surgery within the next 2 weeks.  (I think that he would have had it today were it not for the fact that he had JUST eaten breakfast.  Darn it!!)  After the Surgeon looked at his MRI he was adament that surgery was the only thing that would fix it.  Innitially there was speculation that it may be able to be fixed with injections or physical therapy, but he said that Derek has THE WORST injuries in anybody his age he has ever treated!!!  Most of the problem is genetic (thanks Wade ;)) but it didn't help that Derek has been abusing his back for years.  The Surgeon said that if he were able to put it statistically, out of all of the back injuries in the country, Derek ranks in the top 5% for being the worst.  WOW!!!  It's such a blessing that the disc's are pressing the nerve in such a way that he has LOST feeling instead of being in chronic pain!  The bad news is that because we spent so much time "getting right on it," even with surgery there is no guarantee that he will regain feeling in his foot.  It just frustrates me to no end that these backwoods hillbilly Doctors that we have around here just kept putting things off and dragging their feet running tests that weren't even needed and wasting time that we couldn't afford to waste.  The Surgeon straight out told us that had Derek been seen and diagnosed within the first few days of the onset of the numbness we would be in a much better situation.  Instead we spent a month and a half of running here and there following the Dr's orders and missing out on a month of pay to get to this point.  Frustrating....yes, but we are just praying that soon Derek will be on the road to recovery and that the feeling in his foot will return.  That's really all that we can do.

To those of you who have known about this situation, please keep us in your prayers!  The next few months are sure to be trying and we could use all of the prayers we can get!!  I will try to keep everyone posted on how the surgery goes and what is happening going forward. 

A long time coming...

So I have wanted to start a blog for a while now, but as with other things in the crazy life of a mother with 2 small children, it was pushed to the back burner again and again.  It seems that life is just rushing by faster and faster with each passing day, and I often find myself realizing that the people whom I consider most important in our lives are missing out on all of the small details going on within our lives.  As crazy as I know it sounds, I have to think about those who do NOT live their lives via Facebook and aren't seeing the regular status updates and photos that I try to share as often as I get a chance ie: grandparents, aunts & uncles and generally anyone else who is as not tethered to FB as I have unfortunatly become :(  I know that I could pick up the phone, but seriously...on days that I don't have a chance to shower am I really going to have the time to sit down for a phone call???  Chances are, NO.  Also as far as phone calls go, yes they are more personal, but I always feel bad at the end of a long overdue phone call with grandparents or other friends or family that I'm not able to catch up with on as regular a basis as I would like.  I always find myself promising that "I will be better about calling, I promise," knowing full well that I would be...if I could find a spare minute.  (Obviously I am praying that the Good Lord will bless me with a spare moment to blog on a regular basis, LOL!) 

Now I'm not so vain as to think that Cody's first standing up pee in his potty chair is front page news or anything, but it is a laughable story that I think the grandparents at the very least would find at least mildly entertaining.  :)  I know that to most people, friends of Facebook included, probably don't want to hear about the mishaps that we have had with Cody's "pobby" training, or rather, the mishaps that BRIELLE has had to endure with Cody's "pobby" training (bless her little heart,) but for close friends and family who won't be offended by such stories, this blog is for you!!!

So as I set forth on this journey of blogging, I hope that my followers, however few or many, will at least in some small way feel like they are a little bit more informed/included/in the loop on the adventures and mishaps that make up the day to day craziness in the Pfremmer household.  I would like to say that "I will do better blogging" than I do with phone calls, but I don't want to break any promises so I will leave it at this:  I will do my BEST!  :)