so apparently i’m healed…

 This is crazy.  In March I started to feel so crapy I decided to start investigating surgeons.  I figured I’d given it four months and I should look into having the operation.  My thinking was, wait until May — once classes were over so I’d have the whole summer to recover if I needed it. I got in touch with the Ortho who worked on my arm three years ago. As it turns out he’s a spine specialist. Perfect.  So last month I had an initial consultation with him. He looked at my old MRI, did the straight leg raise test and said that in his opinion I should have surgery.  I asked him if I should get another MRI first — he agreed that it would be worth while just to make sure nothing else was going on.  Last week I finally had the MRI and I got a copy of the CD so I could look at it.  I took a look at the MRI — now I’m not a doctor but to my untrained eye it looked like the disc protrusion had shrunk significantly. I’d say like 70%. It looked better than I feel.  I figured that I’d see the Dr. today and he’d say, "you can either keep doing what you’re doing or have surgery." Now mind you, I feel better than I did in November, better than I did in April but I don’t feel great. My foot burns, I have shooting pains, I can’t sit long and it hurts my foot to stand for more than an hour. I can however bend painlessly at the waist. 
The Dr. looked at my MRI and he seemed shocked. "It’s gone," he said. "The disc herniation has been completely resorbed by your body." Needless to say I wasn’t expecting that. He explained that what I was seeing on the MRI was residual inflammation and that in another six months I could expect that to go away.  I have some scarring that’s pressing on my sciatic nerve — so there may always be a degree of pain but more or less I’m healed. While I don’t feel fantastic, just knowing that I’m on the right course, that my hard work over the last six months has paid off is a huge relief. I still have to be careful the rest of my life. I have to remain on an anti-inflammatory diet for another six months at least and I can’t let up on my exercises but it looks like I’m going to be okay-ish.
Remember all my crying and hysterics back in November?  Uh, yeah… Never mind…