valentinegirl

When I went for my annual physical in December I confessed that I can no longer stand up straight (plus not being able to walk more than a few steps without an aid), and my NP was like, "Hmm how about physical therapy? And also you need to get in with the neurologist again." - except neurology couldn't get me in until July (apparently the neurologists in my hospital system have certain things they will/won't take patients for and I have a bunch of stuff that ruled out several providers), so the NP's office decided to send me right to neurosurgery, and neurosurgery ordered a bunch of MRIs, since I haven't had them done in more than a decade. MRIs complete, aaaaaand both my NP's office and my physical therapist were like, "Oh hey your MRI reports are up on the patient portal but don't Google anything!". Yeah, I have done enough reading on my various conditions over the years that I only needed to look up where the noted vertebrae (with yet another birth defect) are located in the spine. So! The spinal cyst that was drained in my original 2013 surgery has refilled, which would explain why I can barely walk these days.

I was not really surprised - my neurologist at the time of the original surgery said basically that it would push back needing mobility aids by about ten years, and I made it almost exactly ten before needing to use one full-time. I will not be surprised next week when the neurosurgeon tells me I should get the cyst drained again, and I'm going to guess I'll need the shunt version this time. (The cyst forms because cerebrospinal fluid isn't moving the way it should and the shunt moves the fluid elsewhere so it doesn't fill up the cyst again.) Again I say: where is my robot body?

Physical therapy basically makes me laugh, my therapist is so earnest about it and I'm like, this is a skill babies can do and yet you have to hold on to a belt as I walk down a hallway so I don't fall over, it's ridiculous. Last night we had to do a progress update for insurance so it was a re-do of all the original walking tests I did at the end of December, and even though I don't feel like I have made any progress at all, I did the tests with the Rollator the first time and did them with the cane this time, so that automatically counts as progress for insurance.