We finally managed to get in touch with the doc reading the MRI results. His comment was, "Yep, Mr. Fryar, you have a severe herniation of the L5-S1 disc. That'll take surgery to fix. I'm gonna call Dr. Dossett to get you an appointment."
By the afternoon of the next day, we still had not heard anything from either doc. So, we hit the phones again. And after many calls, we finally got in. It turned out the Dr. Dossett had to pass off to Dr. Clavennes, which turned out to be a good thing. Its amazing how God does that.
The next blessing came in the form of a nurse practitioner that recognized I needed some serious pain management and got me admitted to the hospital that evening. What an incredible blessing. They got my pain under control and my surgery scheduled. I met the doctor and he concurred that the only real option was surgery, so it became a matter of time. The next evening I was in and done in about an hour and a half.
When I awoke, the pain was gone. Wow. They had removed the portion of the disc that was pushing on the nerve and placed some pain-reducing agent in there as well. I could not tell I had been operated on. It was amazing. They told me that the nerves would wake up again in a day or so and that I would need to be extremely careful for the next few weeks while things healed.
I am so thankful for the skill and knowledge that God has allowed these doctors to posses. I am also so thankful that He has allowed me to receive treatment. I still don't know why I have been required to endure these trials and I may never know. But the Lord has also shown me mercy through all of this and I will praise Him for that.
It is hard to be thankful for a trial. And I have discovered that instantaneous thankfulness for suffering is very hard indeed. However, I think that as time goes by and I can reflect on the happenings, the thankfulness will come. I believe it will come because I will see the wonderful things that God did during this time emerge from the haze of the pain. And I'm looking forward to that.
A very good reference and discussion of the type of procedure I underwent can be reviewed here.
