I wouldn't have believe it if I didn't see it for myself.

First of all, if you live anywhere near New York and you need to get a Spinal Tap, go to Dr. Merchandani of Methodist Hospital in Brooklyn, in the Radiology Department. What a sweetheart.

He met us in the morning and Alan says to him "Don't forget to give me lots of novocaine". and the doctor replied "Novocaine, we don't use novocaine anymore, and the nurse said "that's right, don't we hit them over the head with a piece of iron or something? Alan burst out laughing. Took away all the tension.

Dr. Merchandani explains that he has this x-ray machine that he uses to locate where he will do the Spinal Tap and he uses Lidocaine and etc. etc. and so we say our goodbyes, and I wait until Alan is wheeled right past me (about 90 minutes later). His LP took longer than usual because Alan has severe spinal stenonis and the doctor changed needles to a much smaller, thinner one to get the spinal fluid out. He spoke to Alan during the whole thing apologizing if he was hurting Alan and Alan said "you're not hurting me" (Alan told me the whole story on the way home).

When it was over, as I'm waiting in the waiting room, the doctor approaches me and says "He did fine, the fluid was clear and he went on to explain about what it means if it is cloudy or has blood in it, but he said "his fluid was nice and clear". What they look for ar markers, etc. I told him, "yeah, I learn lots of stuff from the Neuropathy Boards on the internet. He said "oh really, that's great".

Then I see Dr. Goldfarb, and I had the opportunity to ask her about my concern about his taking zoloft and the cymbalta and about Seratonin Syndrome. She told me not to worry. So I won't worry about that.

Alan will see Dr. Goldfarb in about 10 days.

Then they wheeled him before me on the way to recovery. Alan is lying on his stomach. Since it was better for his PN for him to lie on his stomach, the doctor said "No problem". So there was Alan lying flat on his stomach with his head down turned to the side telling me "Melody, this guy is great, I didn't feel a thing". I was amazed.

Then he went to recovery until 1 p.m. and they gave him juice and took real good care of him. He was able to walk down to get on the access-a-ride and he just now ate a bagel and some crystal light (with splenda) no aspartame.

The doctor told him as he was looking at the x-rays, he said "Alan, I will tell you this, you have a severe degenerative spine. The stenonis was so severe he told him "only surgery could fix this".

So if we need to, they have an arthritic spine specialist on another floor. This hospital has everything. Alan wouldn't hesitate to go any place else.

So he feels good. They told us what to do about not raising the head too high and too fast and just relaxing the whole day. So far, he's doing good.

He is a very good patient. I don't think I would have been that calm. I had heard all sorts of horror stories about spinal taps but it seems in Alan's case, it was not painful. How cool is that???

Melody