Right now, I am having monthly IV drip infusion treatments of pamidronate for a total of six months. When this is done, my surgeon at The Chiari Institute in NY will do the craniocervical fusion necessary to finally stabilize my head and neck. This surgery means there will be rods placed on the back of my skull, under the scalp, and there permanently, and they will travel down the C spine to about C4 or C5.
At the Chiari Institute, they extract the head and neck upwards to align the spine and put things back into place before they fuse you. However, if you have Tethered Cord Syndrome (TCS),
they have found it is counter productive to pull up in the cervical traction and then fuse while your spinal cord is still tethered.
My surgeon has reported that I have TCS. Thus, I must have the spinal cord detethered before I can have the long-awaited fusion done.
So, the plan is this:
Go to The Chiari Institute, hopefully soon.
Have the ICT (Invasive Cervical Traction) which will determine how much my neck needs to be
extracted upwards.
Next day, have the TCS surgery done.
Go home for 3 months.
Then go back, hopefully in Feb. of 08, to have the craniocervical fusion done.
Then, wear a halo for 3 months.
I am right now awaiting the firm decision by my surgeon, Dr. Bolognese, that we will be proceeding with the TCS surgery. I am hoping that the decision is yes. My feet have been so painful for so long, and continue to get worse. Also, my legs are painful and very weak. I have heard the TCS surgery will really help to lessen these symptoms.
It seems that when I suffered spinal cord injury from my horse wreck/Jefferson frx, this injury also affected a congenital condition (but unknown to me) of TCS.
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