Inside Look

Here I am with a smile on my face, standing in front of x-rays of my back. This is something I never thought would happen. Here are a series of x-rays that show my back's story from the inside out. The first x-ray was taken by my wonderful chiropractor Dr. Christian Cohen at Backbone Restored. Dr. Cohen was the one who discovered why I was having such constant low back pain that nothing seemed to help.
I have Spondylolysthesis which is basically a slip caused by a crack in my vertebrae. We think this happened when I hurt my back on a trampoline at age 15.  (No x-ray was taken at that time.)  And then it was exacerbated by pregnancy.
Dr. Cohen put me on a great program and really did help me a lot. (If you are looking for an awesome Chiropractor--- he is definitely not your average Chiropractor....check out his website to find out why.)

Over a two-year period or longer (starting while I was pregnant with Rose) I bounced between ongoing Chiropractic Care, Physical Therapy, water aerobics, consistent walking plans, resting plans....etc, etc. I went to see a Physiatrist--someone who specializes in internal medicine for pain management--and he said, "Do more physical therapy."  I was in so much pain and could not function well. I couldn't sit still for very long at all,. Sitting through sermons was unbearable...and that is a bad thing to say coming from a preacher's wife! (Obviously the sermons were great it was my back that was the problem!)

Eventually,  my wonderful Physcial Therapist, Jill, (who saw me through all this), looked at one another and agreed.... I was getting nowhere. She suggested I see a surgeon. We thought that he would suggest cortisone injections, and that it would give me the boost I needed to continue physical therapy. We were all shocked when Dr. Cove' after a really long, quiet, pause while looking over my x-rays and MRI turned and said, "Well, I think you need surgery."

So, after much prayer, a second opinion and a lot of advice we decided to do it.
So here are some pictures before, showing the slip.
Here is an x-ray showing a month after surgery (I think)
Then the last two are 6 months after surgery.  They show some bone growth, which means that the fusion is taking . The fusion won't be complete until one year after my surgery.