My Mustangs.

Everyone's okay, or as Brad puts it, "No fatalities".   I haven't been going for walkabouts or adventures, but I hope that changes soon.  I have been in a awful inflammation flare-up that won't go away, even with my higher dose of steroids.  I have been in so much pain I don't know when it where it's coming from or when it starts or stops.  It's like my brain is working over time trying to shut it out and ignore it.  Good old brain...good for something anyway.

To put a long story short, my GP sent me off for an X-ray of my spine, quickly followed by an MRI.

I never thought they would get me in one of those contraptions!  I get claustrophobic in a Boeing 747!  Mind you, they had to tranquilize me.  I told Brad we could have a bit of sport with it.  "I'll waddle around the lobby and the nurse could try to hit me with a dart gun" I said.  I imagined myself going down like an elephant hit by a tranquilizing dart on the Serengeti.  "Keep me away from water", I told Brad, "in case I stagger into it and drowned".  It wasn't as exciting as I hoped though.  The sedative didn't seem to be working.  When I was put into the MRI tube I kept my eyes closed and thought about the day Wildairo was having his feet trimmed and he made a fool of himself by 'blowing' through the sedative and having fisticuffs with the farrier.  "You're better than Wildairo," I kept telling myself.

My doctor didn't like the look of the MRI at all and set up an appointment for me to see a Neurosurgeon.  I saw him a week ago Monday and he informed me I had a bad back and there are many  things wrong with it seems.  I told him my theory of why it went bad, even came up with a name for it 'Total Back Collapse', but he didn't seem too impressed.  My theory hinges on the fact that four years ago a bone scan showed the bone in my back was being turned into Swiss cheese because of the Sarcoidosis.

The NS told me I had a ruptured disc and fragments of it had broken off on both sides and the shrapnel was what was causing the horrid shooting pains/weakness in both legs.

So, to shorten a long story, tomorrow (12th) I'm having an operation called a Bilateral L3 L4 Discectomy.

If all things go well, I'll be in the hospital overnight, if not, I'll be out in a couple of hours!

Here's Brad and Teddy.  Teddy doesn't like riding the quad bike much.  Although I was racing along on it the other day and trying to get her to run because she's such a fatty fatty boom boom because of the steroids she takes for her asthma.  Well on my way home I found her puffing along and she wanted to ride home so bad she climbed up behind me.


I told Brad he'd have to get one of those tee-shirts, like I've seen bikers wear, that has written on the back, "If you can read this - the bitch has fallen off".


Teddy is such a good little dog.