About Me

Primarily I am a disabled veteran. I served in the US Army from 1982-1986 and while in Germany I tore up my knee. Here I am today after 10 surgeries and this is kind of what my knee looks like.



I retired from the USPS in 2002 after 14+ years.

I also have another medical problem which sounds and looks nastier than what it actually is although from time to time symptoms seem to pop up.



The photo is part of an MRI scan of my neck. In between the two white lines that run up and down the photos is the spinal cord. You can see (although it was hard to scan) that the middle of the neck is a bit different. You can see what looks to be indentation marks....those indentations are from the vertibre in which there are three that to some degree are buldging. There is one specifically that is buldging to such and extent that it is compressing the spinal cord. That should be in the area where the white disappears.

The symptoms from this is mainly PN or peripheral neuropathy which is tingling, numbness, burning, hypersensativity in one or more of the hands, arms legs or feet all depending on the severity and the location within the spine of the problem. Since my problem is in my C Spine or neck then my problems are in my arms and hands.

Since I have moved down here I have established myself with a new ortho group. It's wonderful not needing to travel an hour for specialized healthcare. It took me 10 minutes to get to the new Dr's office. For my knee I saw the wrong DR as they have one who specializes in more severe knee problems (why they didn't set me up with him to begin with I don't know) but I will probably have to travel outside the area if and when I need this last knee procedure revised since it is very highly specialized.

I was very happy with the Dr I saw for my neck. He reviewed the MRI's that I took and he pointed out that I have a "blister" on my spinal cord. He kind of compared it to putting a size 12 foot into a size 10 shoe and that over time and with some amount of use you would develope a blister. When and if I have surgery will depend on how long I can live with the symptoms. Right now I think the most troublesome is the loss of strength in my right hand and my thumb and forefinger specifically. I would say the sensations of touch are 60% of normal. Makes picking up a fine object or holding a utensil a little challenging.

So yesturday I was not able to ride my bike like I had wanted. I think it may have been too cold and maybe cause I gave it a nice workout the day before. It's not like me though to go slow and easy lol No, dive right into things.