Herniated Disk in My Neck

My neck has been bothering me for more than a decade, but within the last several months the level of pain has increased in intensity and longevity. About a month ago it got to the point where my whole left shoulder and surrounding area was spasming and I could feel numbness into my thumb and forefinger. Aleve and Ibuprofen were not helping and I cut ties with my last chiropractor so I went to see a doctor. I got an MRI this last week and the results are in! I have a herniated disk. Even though I've had a lot of neck and shoulder pain I'm not certain how long it's been herniated, but either way I'll be getting a few more tests in the coming weeks. I'm actually doing okay for the most part concerning the amount of pain I have, but I do want to fix the problem. Below are a few pictures and a movie I downloaded and edited from my MR images to let you all see what it looks like. Sorry if you can't enlarge the pictures...

This video is a bunch of cross sections of my neck moving down from about where the skull connects to the neck to a little below the shoulder. Notice at around the third and fourth second how the spinal cord (right in the middle of the image) changes from an oval more or less to a flattened crescent shape. That is where the disk protrudes out into the spinal cord.

Update on No Candy for a Year

I meant to write about this earlier, but last year I made a goal not to eat any sweets or desserts for a year. Well, I did it! My first indulgence occurred early in the morning on Jan. 1, 2010. We were late getting on the road to Portland, Oregon, so I stuffed my face with a piece of the previous night's chocolate cake and some milk. This is not exactly how I planned to reintroduce myself to desert, but I can't complain. It tasted awesome!

I'm now into the full swing of candy eating and it has been nice (real nice), but I'm amazed at how quickly I've gone back to my old binging habits. I've proven I can go without it, now I need find a way to be moderate with it.

In the mean time my new goal this year is to have only one portion per meal. In other words, I don't ever get seconds...ever. Snacking between meals is still problematic, but it's been pretty successful otherwise. I think this goal is way harder than last year's.

January 2010

I told lots of people I would send a picture of my pregnant belly, so here you go.

Abigail and I went ice skating and had a great time.

These are some pictures from our Portland trip when we were out West visiting the Forsyths. We went and saw a beautiful water fall and a fish hatchery.

On one of our girls' nights out we went to a bead shop and made necklaces. There were so many beads! It was hard to make a decision, because the options were endless. We had a fun time.

December 2009

In early December we had our friend Julie come and visit. We had fun with her Impressions 5 and the Kalamazoo Air Zoo.

This year for Christmas we got to go to Tri-Cities, Washington to spend the holidays with the Forsyths. We had so much fun! Abigail LOVED playing with her cousins and getting to know them. All of the Forsyth children were there. Even Carrie and Kjetil came all the way from Norway. Abigail and I had never met Kjetil and that was fun. He and Carrie made us all some really yummy Norweigian food. We all had fun going to movies, eating yummy food and just being together.

We spent the weekend in Portland shopping, swimming in the hotel's swimming pool and at a Trailblazer's basketball game. The game was awesome. Our tickets included a wristband that was basically a "If I see food I want, I can have it." We got to eat shishkabobs, salads, fruits, candy, pizza, meat, rolls...sad thing was there just wasn't enough room in the belly for chips, hot dogs, licorce ropes and candy bars. Our seats were really close to the floor and it was fun to be together.

All the grandkids had fun in their gingerbread aprons making and eating cookies.

Grandma Jamie had gotten a lot of fun soaps and bubble making-smell good stuff. This little elf was Abigail's favorite.

Abigail went around and took a lot of pictures of people. She got some good shots.

We got the "fish room" to stay in. It is this cool room that has paintings of fish all around. Grandma Jamie had also put in a beautiful white Christmas tree, and lots of fun sea shells that Abigail loved playing with. We were very comfortable in our pretty room.

Grandpa Mark had a birthday and they did a fun pinata that the kids loved.

Hanging out at Grandma and Grandpa's