I picked Madeleine up from hospital this morning. She is doing ok but has had severe migraines from a combination of the drugs and the stiffness in her neck. Her neck wound is healing well and appears to be smaller than we thought it would be which is good. None-the-less she wants to send me [...]

Madeleine has had her surgery. It appears to have gone well though we don’t see the surgeon until latter today to hear the official verdict. Thanks for all the supportive comments and e-mails. UPDATE: The surgeon informed us yesturday that the proceedure was ‘text book’ Madeleine is already feeling some improvement in her neck. She [...]

This is my last post before Cervical Arthroplasty surgery tomorrow to remove two discs in my neck and replace them with artificial metal ones. My surgeon says it is a straight-forward procedure and there is nothing to worry about; he also said “We make an incision in the front of your neck and we cut [...]

I finally got a date for my impending cervical disc replacement surgery: 9 December 2008. I promptly changed my hair and went blonde – its one thing I get to control I guess. And no, I won’t be arguing the case for the rationality of changing one’s hair when faced with life changing events!

Got a letter from ACC this morning: “ACC has approved an application to fund your treatment as follows:Cervical Disc Replacement (Arthoplasty)” They have been sitting on this application for ages despite me being classified as “high priority.” Anyhow, now the hospital has to grant me a surgery date within 4 weeks. Needless to say I [...]

I got my MRI results on Tuesday. They show damage to two discs, both are compressed. One is more compressed than the other, the other is protruding and pushing on a nerve, hence all the pain. I have two choices. Do nothing and see if it fixes itself (its been almost 5 months). Have surgery [...]