Neurosurgern Apt

After a month of waiting to see Dr. Cozzens the Neurosurgeon appointment was finally here! Nervous as heck me and my hubby drove to Springfield to see what this new part of our life would bring!

First I had to pass a neuro exam, which I had to take twice due to my big mistake of mixing up left and right! LOL. Then we got to meet the specialist Dr. Cozzens, he was the kind of Dr that you knew would do anything in his power to save you, just by meeting with him! WE instantly decided to stay with this doctor instead of finding a 4th opinion, it feels right and he really knows his stuff! He has dealt with over 1000's of cases of Chiari Malformation and has only operated on just over a 400 of them. For those of you that don't know there are around 300,000 Chiari Malformation cases known in the USA, which seems like alot but its out of ALL the people in the USA! Its considered a rare disease, but they are seeing it more and more these days.

Any who after looking at the MRI and going threw my past experiences and future symptoms the Doc told us that Surgery, he felt was a necessity for me and that my symptoms would continue to worsen from the pressure in my head! (Let me tell you what was going threw my head, here I am sitting on a bed talking to a doc I just meet with a Skull in his hand explaining the procedure to my husband and I. While I am silently freaking out! I really thought that he was gonna say "Here is your new medicine this will solve all your problems and we will see you in a year", looking at my husband I knew he had thought just what I had). The doctor stayed in the room with us for almost an hour explaining it all and tell us the chances and risks of the surgery.

We feel alot better about the surgery knowing the procedure and feeling that God is control of Dr. Cozzens hands!! Yes, we are a little scared...I mean after all it is a brain surgery!! After the decompression surgery, we will have to stay in the hospital for 2-4 days depending on how surgery goes and then I will be physically done for close to a week, then I can not heavy lift for 3 weeks and the recovery time takes up to a year to recover to your original self.

After making the a very tough decision the hubby and I decided that we would schedule surgery for the week of Feb 16. Meanwhile I will have to have another MRI on Wed. of my neck to make sure that I don't have Syringomyelia. If that is the case and we do have it then we have no choice at all on the surgery, and then the surgery will be a little more risking but have the same outcome. Until surgery I plan to really enjoy life, and celebrate my little girls 2 birthday! I have a feeling these next couple weeks are going to drag by slowly!

I am sorry if I have not returned your phone calls, texts, emails but I really needed a night to let it sink in, if you have any questions I can definitely try to help you understand it through what we have been given.