Michayla and Her Spine

This is the last blog entry for today, I promise.

One more "exciting" thing that has been occupying a lot of our time and thoughts is the return of Michayla's health to the spotlight.  I suspected last fall that Michayla might have the same tethered spinal cord syndrome that Autumn had, and I made the necessary appointments to get that investigation started.

However, we ran into a couple of roadblocks when the insurance company denied the MRI necessary for her diagnosis, and then the first specialist to see her canceled our appointment because he was leaving the practice.  I was discouraged enough by all of this to let doubt creep in about the seriousness of Michayla's symptoms.  I was probably overreacting, I told myself.  She certainly doesn't complain as much as Autumn did.  If there really is anything wrong with her, it's probably not even the same thing... and so on and so forth.  So I didn't pursue it anymore.

Then at the end of February, I got a phone call from the specialist's new office.  They wanted to know if I still wanted Michayla to be seen.  I was having a really bad week when they called and I almost shouted at them to Go Away!  Couldn't they see I was too stressed out to be bothered by another appointment?  But I didn't say that, and I'm so glad I chose to be calm and responsible.

Michayla was seen the following week and I learned some eye-opening things about  my daughter that she apparently didn't deem worthy of mentioning before.  I guess if you live with symptoms most of your life, you just assume they are normal.

This first specialist isn't authorized to diagnose a tethered cord, but he said he's "pretty convinced" and referred her on to Dr. Wehby, who is the neurosurgeon who did Autumn's surgery.  He also ordered an MRI, which the insurance accepted this time.  This appointment was significant to me because this same specialist didn't see anything wrong with Autumn; so he if thinks Michayla has it right off the bat, I'm thinking she probably does.

So Michayla's next step is to be seen by Dr. Wehby on April 9th.  She will decide if Michayla is a candidate for surgery.  And if she is, her operation will probably rapidly follow that April appointment.