Emergency Surgery Monday A.M.

• Sometimes the craziest things happen to me - even though it's not funny, I still have to chuckle a little bit.
• People have hurt backs all the time and they live with it for years. Me - I get a hurt back from a sports injury (and a genetic condition - thanks Mom and Grandma) and I have to get rushed into emergency surgery because my foot is paralyzed and soon my bowel and bladder might become paralyzed too. That is NOT good - I'd like my bowels and bladder to work on their own, thank you very much!

• Here's a picture of what's going on: Basically, I have a SEVERELY herniated disc (much bigger than this picture shows) that is pushing against my main nerve off my spinal cord. That nerve affects lots of stuff. Right now mine is severely sick and dying because it is squished between the disc and the bone of the vertebrae and has been for awhile now. The pressure has to be released off that nerve NOW for it to have any chance of recovering.

• The great thing is that it is so sick it is not able to send out any pain signals anymore, so I really am feeling ok and not in any kind of pain - that definitely is a blessing.

• Sooooo, tomorrow at 9:45 a.m. Dr. Smith is going to go in and clean all of the messy stuff up, free my nerve, hopefully give it a little pep talk and some medicine and it will get happy and heal properly.

• Best Case Scenario: I breeze through the operation in an hour, wake up and not get sick from the anesthetic, go home, and the nerve starts recovering and getting healthy again. That means I will be able to walk for exercise in about a week, fly to Florida for Spring Break and maybe be back on the tennis court in 4 - 6 months, without a brace on my foot.

• Medium Case Scenario: Same as above, but maybe my nerve is a little perturbed and decides it doesn't want to heal all the way. In that case, I will live with a numb, tingly and possibly semi-working foot and leg. The doctors can fit me with a brace to help me walk, but it will not look very good with some of my summer short outfits.

• Worst Case Scenario: This one's kind of scary - the nerve gets more damaged during the surgery and actually dies afterward. Not only will I probably live the rest of my life with a dead foot, semi-dead leg and a brace, I could lose the ability to control my bowels and bladder. Even in the worst case scenario though, I could still live a good life with some adjusting. I'm sure this is not what Trent was thinking about though when we said "for better or for worse", but whatever happens, we will deal with it.

• Here's what I know - God has a plan for me and He is not going to let anything happen to me that is not supposed to happen. I will praise Him and continue to do whatever it is He wants me to do while I'm here on this earth, whether that's in my normal body or an "altered" one. He has been faithful and I know that I can trust Him!

• I've got a lot of work to do and I'm ready to go, so I believe that this surgery is a blessing that will get me back to normal quickly so that I can get back to work and helping people.

• Please keep me, Trent and Cody in your prayers and I will keep you posted here on the blog. I've instructed Cody that he has to document my surgery day tomorrow for my blog, so get ready for some interesting pictures!