Struggling

Rob's back has been giving him more trouble than it usually does. Finally I talked him into going the ER to get looked at before school started. The ER doctors ordered X-rays to be done and were not happy with what they saw. His lumbar spine looked like it was crumbling. They gave him some pain medication and told us to call his doctor in the morning and get an MRI ordered as soon as possible to get better detail on what was going on. We called the Ogden VA clinic and Dr. Alexander agreed that something bad was going on and immediately put in for a MRI at the SLC VA Hospital in two weeks. Well the time came and we drove down he got his MRI and we were done in twenty minutes. We drove back home with a stop to get the boys a treat for being so good at the hospital. The technician that did his MRI told us it would be 3-5 days before we would hear from our doctor. Well after getting home it was about 4pm when Rob noticed that he had a missed call. Dr. Alexander's office had called, they told us that he had been diagnoised with Severe neural formainal stenosis of the right side and that a consult had been ordered with neuro surgery for as soon as possible. *crickets chirping* Not knowing what Neural formainal stenosis was we did what everyone does, we googled it. Turns out it is where the formainal spaces or where your nerve endings come out of your vertebrae, are degrading and closing off which is pinching his nerves to his legs. This explains why he can't feel anything in certain spots of his legs and feet and why it is so hard for him to get around. We also discovered that this requires surgery as there is no treatment for it. His appointed time to meet with the surgeon came so we loaded up the kids and drove down to Salt Lake again and waiting for almost an hour to finally meet with the surgeon. Once the dr was there he looked at Rob's legs had him walk a few feet and then sat down and told us that there was nothing wrong he just needed to lose weight. There was no restrictions and he could do whatever he wanted to do to lose the weight...... The exact opposite of what Dr. Alexander and his physical therapist told us to do. Needless to say he really ticked us off. If there was nothing wrong in the first place Rob wouldn't have been told he had to see a neuro surgeon. We went down and got a copy of his MRI and notes and went home. We called Dr. Alexander back and told them what happened and asked if there was a way we could get a second opinion as we were not comfortable with the surgeon we just saw. After telling us that the VA doesn't do second opinions and that we would have to pay for one ourselves, we called up alpine orthopedics and found out that it would only be 140.00 dollars for an office visit with the neuro surgeon, luckly we had a little extra money from my student loans, We quickly scheduled an appointment and then went back to school. A few days later we got a 14 page questionnaire from their office asking us to fill it out. It covered everything that would possibly be wrong with his back and then some. On the day of his appointment we went to the office and meet with Dr. Brent Felix. We were seen in just under 20 minutes and he went over everything on the paper and then did a physical exam. He was not happy with what he saw on the MRI and in the exam. He was not happy with our previous Dr either he said that at the very least he should have scheduled us shots until surgery could be preformed. However because of how young Rob is he doesn't want to do surgery at this point because he was afraid that he would have to repeat it in 15 or 20 years from now. If he was to have surgery he would do a fusing of his L4,L5 and S1 vertebrae. Dr. Felix recommend shots as soon as possible and to continue with his physical therapy as it would help as well. Well after about two months we got to go down to the SLC VA Hospital again and get his shots for his back. The doctor that put them in gave him a double dose as his back has gotten even worse since his MRI was done. He told us that if Rob wasn't feeling better in a week to call his doctor up and let them know that is wasn't working and that we needed to schedule his surgery. Well it is now two weeks since we got his shots and all it did was numb it up for about three hours and then nothing. He now has headaches all the time, he has no appetite and he is slightly nauseous all day. He still needs his cane to move around and he can't hold the boys for more than ten minutes without his back seizeing up, I don't think it worked. Hopefully we will hear from Dr. Alexander soon so we can get this finally taken care of so he can actually play with his boys without severe pain.