Hello all, new member with question

[flygla]

Thank you Mark. I will look up what I can find about VATS.......sounds like something rarely done. My hopes are low, it's hard when you are not even 40 to feel like you are 80..... but nevertheless, I won't give up hope.

At least I am still able to flyfish despite it all......if I lost that, I would probably be lost then. I will take your advice and have my neck rechecked as well, who knows, that's where the original damage started.

Thanks again and also for all your links, some of which I have never seen before..... info sharing is good and keeps the hope alive.

Give Melanie a high and tell her I hope she is a whole lot warmer than I am in the frozen white north. Snowing in Vancouver today!!

Cheers
Deb

[Maria]

Hi Deb,
Welcome to the forum~ sorry to hear how you ended up here in terms of accident/injury/symptoms.

I have a friend that is crazy about flyfishing~ I think it would aggravate my neck a bit by the casting (? correct terminology) only because when I toss a ball to my dog I seem to aggravate my neck/shoulder (and sometimes elbow) tho perhaps I'm wrong since I haven't really tried it myself and don't know what muscle groups are used for this sport exactly.

One thing for sure is if you love something and are able to be semi active with it as well as the other areas of your life, that sounds pretty decent!

Glad to hear the ESI's helped the lumbar area so much~ that is really GREAT!! Now just hope the other offending areas will heal up as nicely!

[fortitudine]

Hi Deb,

I can't help you at all, but I just wanted to say welcome from another Canadian, in Calgary(I'd say Canuck but you might think I play hockey in your town). There are very few of us on any spine forums. It's a challenge in Canada finding out what's going on, what docs are doing what, who's the best, etc. because the public health system doesn't really allow for the public to get additional consults or find out who's who in their specialty. I do know that we are not very advanced in the field of ADR. Don't know about t-spine issues. I'll see if I can find out what's happening here.

Mark is a fountain of knowledge, and if anyone knows where the right doc is in the US or Europe, it will be him.