My Single Mom Life

I went and saw my surgeon today, Doc M., and he did a few xrays, physically examined my shoulder, and told me that the shoulder blade area pain is probably due to a pinched nerve in my neck, and it's actually not that uncommon.
He said that he has had patients, and has been at scoliosis conventions with other surgeons, who said that many scoliosis surgical patients end up at some point down the line, even as far out as 5 years after the surgery, with a pinched nerve in their necks that is the cause of this pain in the shoulder blade area.
He ordered an MRI of my neck, so I need to make that appointment on Monday.
It should be fun.
I'll have to wear this like anti-magnet sheet or suit, depending on where I go, that allows me to be in the MRI machine without being all magneticy due to the hardware in my body.
He also asked for my pain doc to fax him the results of the CT scan that they did, so he can read through those and see if he can determine anything from it.
If not, he thinks the MRI will show the pinched nerve in my neck.

Now why do I have that sore on my shoulder blade?
He asked me what I had been doing to myself, I told him nothing really, it was just a little red and bruised when this whole thing started, and then my pain doc started doing those trigger point injections.
I had 1 injection per week for 3 weeks.
Doc M. believes that the sore was actually caused by those injections.
When I told him that 1 was Decadron, 1 was Decadrol, and 1 was an anti-inflammatory mixed with a steroid, he said that those injections are more than likely the cause of the sore.
He said I must be allergic to at least 1 of the ingredients in the injections, and it caused the sore to appear.
Then every time he did 1, it caused the area to get worse until it finally ended up being a full blown infection.
So he told me to tell the pain doc, no more trigger point injections of any kind, because we don't know which ingredient it is that is causing the allergy.
That works for me!
Those injections never helped me with the pain anyway.

I should have gone to see my surgeon when this whole thing started, instead of trusting my pain doc to be able to figure this out.
When I told Doc M. what happened at the ER, he was angry.
He said that doctor should have examined the area and realized it was infected, which was also causing the area to be more sore than just the pinched nerve, and not treat me like I had a heart attack.
He said the EKG was as far as they should have gone, especially after telling them I already have a blood clot filter in there.
I had that put in about a week before the surgery, and when they did the angiogram, they could have damaged it.
But luckily they didn't.
He was able to see that it's still in place and ok when he did a spot xray on my iliac (hip joint) screws.
The left side one, which is the broken one, is doing ok.
I have new bone growth, a lot of it he said, growing all over and around, and in between the broken part of the screw, which is helping it be stable.
He really doesn't want to take those iliac screws out for a few more years, or never, if we can help it.
So he said we'll keep checking on it periodically to see how it's doing, and if the screws are still causing me pain in another year or 2, then we can take them out.
He'd really prefer not to though, because those screws really do help hold all the hardware in place.

So here we go, a pinched nerve is possibly and probably, the reason why my shoulder blade is so painful, and the sore is an infection caused by an ingredient in one of the trigger point injections.
I totally should have just gone straight to him.
I would have saved myself a ton of money, time, and pain.
That's my fault, I spent 2 months in pain and getting an infection, when he had the answers all along.
Ok, gotta go call the pain doc and have him fax over the CT scan results.
I'll catch up with everyone later on this evening.

Thanks again to Mindy and her daughter Katie, for taking me all the way there, and to 2 different pharmacies when we got back.
I totally appreciate it.
Thank you!