Hi folks,

I've not been very active lately, while I do try to check in and put my 2 cents in as often as I can. But I'm going to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester on Sunday, and getting ready has been consuming.

The consultation is mainly about my back. The major opinion here in NY is that there is no hope that it will ever fuse, I will be increasingly disabled by pain, and require more extensive surgery whenever I'm emotionally ready for it. I'm told by my spine surgeon that there will be absolutely NO neurological from waiting, because the spine has been so decompressed by the laminectomy. (For those interested who do not know the backstory, I'm a pn patient using this board since 2000, who had a spinal cyst and had a laminectomy and fusion in Feb 06)

My surgeon is not worried about the screws which have become loose in my spine.

Several doctors who are not my own doctors, people I've gotten through by hitting the email address button on abstracts, have said that fusion is possible, but that loose screws are a danger to soft tissue and bone.

So, I'm off to Mayo to get a good opinion on whether or not there is danger from the scrwes, plus, whether I've managed to improve the state of my spine with the bone growth stimulator I insisted upon last month, after reading about them on the net.

(anyone picking up a shade of bitterness about my treatment is on target with the core of my feelings about the entire last year).

I dont' know if they'll want to re-visit the neuropathy subject with new studies, or a f/u visit to the people who evaluated me in 2000.

I have been working with the pharmacy which messed up the meds they prescribed for me this past year, and getting no place, really. They made two medication errors, but did not write incident reports on them. They had me mail back bottles with the wrong dose, but that left me without documentation. I'm bitter about the pharmacy also. The pharmacist says what he did was proper and does not need better methods for dispensing.

He had dispensed a med ordered 6 months earlier, because the current medicine was out of re-fills. He thinks that's okay. I've written to the CEO of the company, and he's "investigating" which means documenting that they've done well.

Anyway, I'm off Sunday. I rented a laptop, knowing how it helped Billye keep in touch, but the thing weighs a TON, and I'll have to buy a bag on wheels to lug it around.

Overall, I am feeling much more well than in the past couple of years, though not really "well" yet. Just moving in the right direction.