My Nuts and Bolts

Two weeks ago I had a busy week, with two very looong doctor's appointments at the hospital. My mom and I were gone for 5 hours for the first appointment, and 6½ hours for the second one, just two days later. (I was originally supposed to have a third appointment that week with the optometrist, too, but my mom and I knew that we would be pooped from the first two appointments, so we rescheduled the optometrist for the following Friday for our sanity's sake!) With the exception of these two appointments being long, both went really well.

I had to get some x-rays of my neck after the appointment with my physiatrist, which is a doctor of physical medicine. I spent an hour getting all of these x-rays done, and my neck was so sore afterwards from getting stretched and turned every which way so that it could be in the right position for each x-ray. (I can't hold my head up, especially when I have to sit up at a 90° angle, so one of the guys in the x-ray department had to stretch/hold my head in the right position.) I couldn't wait to get home!

I had to get my neck stabilized after my accident, so this is what I was left with: lots of little pins and screws inserted to hold things together to give me the best chance of having as much movement as possible. These diagrams should give you an idea of where the C2 vertebra is, which is where my neck was broken in my car accident. (It's right at the base of the skull, where the skull and spine meet.)

Then at my appointment on Thursday, I had a renal ultrasound on my kidneys to check for stones. I met with my urologist afterwards, and she said that everything looked good; no new stones, and the one that I'd had two months previously was no longer visible. I don't know if it passed, or what, but it wasn't there anymore. I won't complain! I met with a nephrologist (kidney specialist) after seeing my urologist, and he said that my kidneys looked great and were functioning well. Woo-hoo! I don't have to go back to these doctors until January 2016.