Hi, My name is Rita and I wanted to respond as I can to your confusion over your MRI results. I am a Nurse Practitioner and while I practice both in Hospital Intensive care units and on Orthopedic floors, I myself suffer from several severe spinal problems and believe me the results can be confusing even to someone who may read and have to interpret these results on other patients, including myself. I believe in past years, Radiologists who read these test can be a little vague, maybe for legality reasons or the fact that more and more Orthopedic and Neuro doctors prefer to interpret the results themselves so they can decide on the best course of action for their patient.
1.)First, desiccation of a disc means that the natural jelly like substance that is normally seen between 2 bones in the spine has dried up. This in turn, can cause the bones to rub together causing pain and further damage to the bones themselves. You can see this as a result of years of straining, an injury to the area or the natural aging process. There is really no cure for getting the fluid back into this jelly like substance.
2.) The report stating c5-6 paracentral protrusion of the disc means that just to the right on the center of the disc, the sac that acts as a shock absorber between each bone in the spine is protruding(or pushing through the bones enough to put pressure on the spinal cord itself. This can cause pain, numbness in areas of the shoulders, arms, hands but the disc contents (that jelly like substance has not yet herniated (or came out of the sac). This doesn't mean that your problem should be addressed or taken seriously though because anything that presses on the spinal cord can cause pain, weakness of muscles, and numbness or tingling(like in your arm (most likely the right one in this case) is present and causing you problems on a frequent basis.
3) The mild eccentric bulging to the left at C3-4 in your report means the cushion (or sac) between those levels is bulging slightly through the bones toward the left side, (eccentric) just means (not in the center, off to the side, in this case your left one) the fact that they see no stenosis (definition of stenosis is narrowing of any open space in the spine that might cause pressure on the spinal cord and its nerves. (so this bears watching but is good news overall)
4) Last, the mentioning of disc degeneration is a medical term that is usually most frightening to patients because many Radiologists who read these reports call it Degenerative disc disease, which makes people think they have a serious disease. While degeneration of a disc may get worse as we age, it may also improve, but simply put it means that cushion/s between the bones(vertebra) of the spine are just not working as well as they once did and may cause symptoms such as pain, weakness, or numbness in the areas they occur in. If the nerves are not affected or the spinal cord is not affected, many doctors monitor the progress on the degeneration and treat a variety of ways., such as physical therapy, certain exercises, anti- inflammatory medicines or other for the pain. Different doctors may suggest different treatments.

I hope my explanation has helped some. It is difficult to explain in writing sometimes what these things mean. Hopefully your doctor will go over these findings in detail enough so you understand completely. I too have trouble at times trying to understand what my own! MRIs mean by the way the Radiologist has written them. It would be nice if they were all written in a way that could be easily understood, yet it is much like any other Physician, everyone is different in how the say what they want to say, especially in medical terms..
I wish you the best of luck, and hope I didn't confuse you more. If you have more questions, I would be glad to try to help if you wish. Have a wonderful day!......Rita