I guess I should have written all of this down before. I got some of it backwards (wrong fusion area, wrong diagnosis)... Alzheimer's, I suppose...

She has 3 herniated discs L4,5,6. The fusion is to be at 4,5. She has Ankylosing Spondylitis (not spondylosis) and the MRI show much Inflammatory Disease of the spine. She also has some kind of connective tissue disease and possibly Sjogren's, etc. etc. etc...

The surgeon told her that he felt she would do better with the use of carbon in the fusion, when she voiced concern over her body not liking foreign things. I don't know carbon's place in fusions, so can't even express an opinion there. She also said he talked about titanium, in addition to the carbon.

I did tell her what CrazyCare said, but she wasn't concerned over the vocal chords, since the fusion is low in the back, not up in the neck, like I thought she said. (Oh brother, I hope my mind doesn't get any worse here...) I read Cray Care's entire post to her over the phone. Since she now has Internet hookup, I suggested she do some research on this surgery...

Billye, she is not on anything like that. Her platelets are normal and I have a hard time understanding why-with being seen by so many docs, you would think that someone would be appalled at this horrible bruising and do further investigating-this has not been done... Enbrel can cause bruising as I remember, but this started long before she was on it. It has worsened.

The other thing is that her skin looks like tissue paper, crinkly and VERY thin. If her dog barely jumps up on her, it rips open the skin and then she gets nasty-looking sores on tops of the bruising... I am not talking about a dog raking its nails down the arm, I mean a very light touch...

Thanks all, what do you guys think?

Cathie