Improved MRI Images and a Plea For Help!

                        Welcome back My Dear Readers to The Other Shoe! I am just tickled pink that I have my primary location back! (Well, I DID today is Sunday the 17th and my blog is gone, again) Today I spent my time bringing the primary blog up to date. Then I worked tweaking five of the images from the MRI so that everyone can ‘see’ what is wrong. I am expecting the radiologists’ report by Friday. When I get the report I will post the results here, too.

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  I am doing this to keep you, My Dear Readers, completely informed of my medical condition and to inform potential contributors of the complete impact of their donations. Each donation helps make it so that I do not have to endanger my health by; lifting, moving, packing or any other potentially dangerous activity. I am a bit of a boy scout and truth is my friend.

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There are five images, below. Each image is a cross section of my cervical spine. They progress from anterior to posterior views. Each image has target areas highlighted by red lines. The areas inside the red lines are trouble areas of my cervical spine. Spinal stenosis is the narrowing of the spinal canal. This narrowing results in; pain, numbness, headaches, and even foot drop (as I am experiencing in my left foot now).

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First image:

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[caption id="attachment_1405" align="aligncenter" width="480"] First MRI Image of s series of Five[/caption]

(Notice the flattened mushroom shapes?)

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Second view, further in from chest to back:

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[caption id="attachment_1406" align="aligncenter" width="480"] Second MRI Image[/caption]

(Clearly you can see the smashed mushrooms blocking the canal)

 

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Third view, further anterior than the last…

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[caption id="attachment_1407" align="aligncenter" width="480"] Third MRI Image[/caption]

(NOW you can clearly see the flat mushrooms from TOP to BOTTOM)

 

Fourth view, next to the last here… but more clearly shows the ‘mushrooming’ of the discs. Note the disc @ C7-T1 (the bottom) appears to be void of dural fluid. OK Each ‘disc’ is made up a dural sack, dural sack fluid, and dural sack fibers. When a disc is completely desiccated the sack is torn, the fuild escapes and all that is left is the dural sack fibers. Also note how the discs are mushrooming ALL ALONG MY SPINE!

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[caption id="attachment_1408" align="aligncenter" width="480"] MRI Image FOUR[/caption]

(Note how the ‘mushrooming’ is all along my spine @ this level)

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Final image from this view of the MRI.

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[caption id="attachment_1409" align="aligncenter" width="480"] Fifth MRI Image[/caption]

(At the bottom of the image, NOTE the mushroom is blocking the canal)

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That brings me to the end of the images. The report will be by a professional radiologist. However, I have more than a little experience at looking at X-Rays and other radiological imaging. I think that even a layperson such as you, My Dear Readers, can see the extensive damage in my cervical spine. Previously, there were no flattened mushrooms shapes. There was only one disc that was encroaching into the spinal canal. Now, there are five discs all along the cervical spine with flattned mushroom heads that clearly encroach into the spinal canal. 

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I am experiencing; headaches, shooting pain into my face and hands and arms and chest. Nausea, dizziness, an a couple of other symptoms that I refuse to discuss in a public forum. The pain is the worst it has been in the history of my disease. Several times a day… the pain is… the worst I have ever felt in my life. I cannot stand without assistance. I cannot bathe without assistance. I cannot walk without dragging my left foot behind me.

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Now, I come to the end of this article. I do believe I have been completely frank about my condition. I have done my best to share the potential risks of my disease. I am scared. I am really scared. One slip and fall and I am a paraplegic or a quadriplegic. That scares me a lot!

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As always, it is my deep honor to have you come to my blog and read my work. Finally, I simply must ask for your assistance. I have no choice to move. Honestly, this could not have happened at a worst time. If I had a choice? I would not move. I have no choice.

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Therefore, I ask for you help. Your assistance. Your donations. The better financial backing I have? The less the chance I am hurt during the process. As I said earlier today…

I WANT TO LIVE!

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Please Share & Help?!?

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="224"] Please help save a life and DONATE[/caption]

MRI Results From August 13, 2013... Some Very Bad News...

            Welcome back, My Dear Readers, to The Other Shoe. I have been home now for about a half an hour. Already I have looked at the images from the MRI I just endured. (More on why I said “endured” in a moment) First, a word of THANKS! To my father Kenneth Hanning. Dad taught me how to read X-Rays and all kinds of scans when I was… … eight or nine. While Darrell played ball, other children had fun in the sun? Danny was working at the Herman Medical Building for my father’s bosses. Each summer I would spend several weeks culling old X-Rays from the wall of film in the doctor’s office. Older X-Rays were sorted, alphabetized then taken down to the basement and put in storage.

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Each and every year for… well, several years I did this for my father. He told me that the doctor’s (because of my help) allowed us the use of the cabin at the lake and use of the bass boat. I helped contribute, each year, to our family’s vacation with my work early in the summer. My father had me working, in the garage helping with TV and Radio repairs, and at work sorting and archiving X-Rays from a very young age.

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I did not mind. Hell, I LIKED IT as a matter of fact! The whole staff at the orthopedic doctor’s office treated me very well. That, and I loved helping my father earn that family vacation that I looked forward to each and every year. So, thanks to my father I do not have to wait to know the results of the MRI scan that was done just three hours ago.

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See St. Joseph’s always gives me a DVD of the scan. I take it home, put it in the same computer I write on and… BAM! I have my results within hours of my scan. My Dear Readers, the news is not good. Matter of fact, the news is pretty bad.

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What I am going to do is a contrast of images. I have several images on this computer from my last scan in 2011. I have already converted image (of the same area, same perspective) from today’s MRI. I will do my best to explain what I am posting, where to look and what to look for.

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            First image from 2011. This is the cervical spine, side view from C-1 to C7. At the top of the image you will notice a small flat headed mushroom between C4 & C5. This is a partially desiccated disc. Next. Notice the mushroom shaped form in the lower part of the screen? This is the disc between C7 and T1. It is/was impinging on the spinal cord back in 2011 (see below)

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[caption id="attachment_1386" align="aligncenter" width="630"] MRI Cervical Spine October 2011[/caption]

(Scan from 2011 Notice the Mushroom shaped Disc)

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Next is the same area of the cervical spine from today’s MRI scan. (I have tweaked these images so they are easier to see what I am talking about)  In the next image, from today, you can see that the mushroom shape in the lower part of the image (C7-T1) is now SHOT!  A few days ago I head a very loud pop in my neck. Based on this scan what I heard? Was the dural sack breaking. See how the mushroom shape is not flattened? The dural sack poped, leaking dural sack fluid into the spinal canal mixing with the cerebral spinal fluid (BINGO that is why I have low-grade fevers) and likely causing a spinal fluid infection. So, all that is left @ C&-T1 IS the dural sack and the fiber. Hence, the grinding I am hearing and the bone snaps.

Towards the top of the screen (below) The dural sack between C3 and C4 has (looks like) been compromised, too. Notice that the mushroom shape is now flat. As a matter of fact all of the discs are flat!  All of the discs in my cervical spine are S H O T! They have gone beyond desiccated and look to me like they are void of fluid and flattened.

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[caption id="attachment_1387" align="aligncenter" width="320"] MRI Cervical Spine August 2013[/caption]

(MRI Image from 8-13-13 Notice the Damaged Discs)

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So, this explains the extreme pain I am experiencing… and (most likely) the fevers and every other symptom I have experienced in the past six months.

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Bottom Line = I am pretty much screwed. To my knowledge there is no surgery for my current situation. I am going to review some more documentation… I wasn’t really ready for this news! This is a much worse situation that I had anticipated. Dr. Gorlick was so frigging accurate in diagnosing “Severe Spinal Stenosis’. One whole side of my cervical spinal canal is blocked with dead dural material. This is greatly limit the flow of cerebral spinal fluid. This can have a lot of bad results.

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I am going to do my best to post this and the images I ahv right now. It is 5:40 PM Pacific time.. about 7:50 PM in Texas. My Dear Readers and my friends and family in Texas.

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More than any time before I need your help. I cannot even help moving… in my current condition. If I try… I will be a paraplegic. I need your support… I need a surgery… that I am not sure exists. However, for the moment… I need your help to assist me in moving.

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You can come out here and literally lend a hand. OR You can make contributions and help save (literally) my life. Just click the link below… and DONATE!

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As always, it is an honor to have you come and read my work. Today… is special.

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THANK YOU!

PLEASE HELP?!?!

 

 

My Date With An MRI Tube, Today!

            Welcome back, My Dear Readers, to The Other Shoe. Today is Tuesday August 13^th, 2013 and my fate for today is to lie in a tube. That’s right today is my MRI at St. Joseph’s hospital here in Orange County. As anyone from my childhood can tell you, Danny is a little (more like a lot) claustrophobic so today promises to be an adventure in fear as well as the daily adventure I experience in pain.

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I am going to do my best ton keep this short, this morning. I am still having a lot of problems using my left hand. I did not sleep well, last night, had a couple of nightmares. I’ve had more than a few of these scans, over the past 26 years (since 1987 when the typewriter did fall on my head). One might think you would get used to being stuck in a tube, for half an hour. However, that is not all there is to it, an MRI scan.

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As well as being shoved in a tube (about the size of a coffin, there is quite the clattered going on, too. Clack, clack, clack. Then ratta-a-tat-tat. Followed by this horrible whirring sound of these magnets flying around your head. There is banging and clanking. There is the fast paced and frantic rat-a-tat-tat and finally that whirring that sounds like you are trapped in a tube with helicopter blades only inches from your head.

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The nightmares I had, last night. Were mostly of these magnets coming through the plastic and crushing my head. That is always the nightmare. Either waking or asleep. That my head will get crushed by flying magnets coming through the casing. Only once in all the years I’ve had these scans was I lucky enough to get a machine. That was open ended, at one end. All the other times, including today. I end up in a tube that is long, clod and dark and closed at the other end.

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I truly envy those who’ve only had a leg or foot scanned. It is an entirely a different matter to have your whole body and head… inside one of these beasts. Now, do not misunderstand, I do have a choice. I do not have to have this scan, it is just suggested to determine in my condition has worsened. However, choice is too strong a word, exactly. This is a year for my Social Security review. Every two years they send me a form for me to fill out.

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The form is to determine if I am to continue to receive my benefits for my disease. IF I were to not get this scan, today. Then when the form did come, I would be without the proof I need. By getting this scan today, I almost assure myself of continued benefits. Every two years I do this, and report the results to the Social Security Administration. Because each and every time I report that my condition has, indeed, worsened. Then each and every time they send me a notice, my benefits they will extend.

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As well, I want to see for myself what the heck is going on that is causing me so much more pain and headaches. As well as the sensation of lava being poured down through my head.  I have another update articles, that I was writing late last night,. I do not know if I will post it, as it is realty kind of dark. Five days without any sign of my best and longest, most published and prideful blog of mine. That is correct, for the past five days The Other Shoe @ blog.com has been completely gone! I am terribly upset and axious as this is the place where all of my work began. As well, it is the blog with nearly THREE HUNDERED ARTICLES already posted. It is the entire history of my blog writing career. I do, genuinely, fear it is gone forever never to be seen again!

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So, that is going to do it for so far today. I hope you have a wonderful day, My Dear and Fellow Readers. I hope that you do not have an afternoon of fear. I hope that when you come here to read my words, next. I am safe and have not been sliced and diced in a tube of horrors.

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As Always it is a great honor for me that you come here to rad my words. I hope that I give you something to think about, and something to enjoy!

Thank YOU!

Please Share & Help?!?

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="224"] PLEASE Help, My Dear Readers, Keep Danny From OFF the STREETS! PLEASE Donate to Daniel's Relocation and General Assistance Fiunding Canpaign[/caption]