2nd Opinion a Success

Last Tuesday I went for my 2nd opinion on my neck. It was insane trying to get there. There was a wreck in Southpointe and 79 was backed up past Canonsburg. For my 9:00 appointment in Sewickley, I left the house at 7:30. My mom went with me and we ended up taking 19 to Bridgeville and getting on 79 past the accident. Ugh! The receptionist called me and told me I'd have to reschedule and I pretty much went postal on her. I took a half day off work and had this appointment for 4 weeks. I'm not rescheduling because an accident happened of no fault of my own. She insisted I would have a long wait. We arrived at 9:10 and they saw me at 9:27. Ya, real long.

I immediately liked Dr. David Oliver-Smith. He had a fantastic personality and was so kind and warm. He pulled my MRIs and we looked at them on the board. He explained exactly how the pictures worked and what they were showing and it was very obvious I have a herniated disk at the C5-6. He asked how much pain I was in and I told him it varies greatly but when I feel fine I could probably do cartwheels and when it's pinching a nerve I consider suicide. (Not really, but yes. It's excruciating and I've told Ryan multiple times I could not and would not live with pain like that)
Dr. Oliver-Smith said he understood exactly and that while a pinched nerve from a herniated disk is unbearable, it is quite fixable. What he couldn't understand is why my nerve is only getting pinched occasionally and isn't constantly painful. He said most people are living on painkillers until their surgeries because their nerve is constantly being pinched. Mine gets pinched and then is fine for weeks, months even, before it is pinched again. So although I've been dealing with this for 15 months, it isn't constant and I have more good days than bad and therefore surgery shouldn't be considered at this time. Great news! I was really worried his opinion would match the 1st neurosurgeon's who suggested I would need surgery by the end of the year.

I also asked Dr. Oliver-Smith about what the first neurosurgeon said- that trying to conceive and getting pregnant would be a huge risk and he advised against it. In all the doctors I've seen for whatever medical reason, I've never had one give such a sincere smile that reached his eyes like Dr. Oliver Smith's. He said that a herniated disk can be fixed at any time but that starting or having a family can take who knows how long. He said he can fix my disk tomorrow, next spring, next year, or in 5 or 10 years from now and said to not put my life on hold or worry about anything involving this herniation. It was definitely the best news I've received since beginning this journey 15 months ago! 

So that's my appointment. Continue living life to the fullest and know that the herniation probably won't go away on its own, but until it starts getting worse, becoming more frequent, or lasting longer each time the nerve is pinched, to not worry about it. The extrusion isn't pressing on my spinal cord so there is no immediate damage.

I'm posting some pictures below of what exactly the MRI shows. These aren't my images but they look like mine did.
 
You can see where the white narrows and the black bulges that there is a herniation. The gray running through the white is the spinal cord. This MRI is also showing a lot of disk degeneration.
 

The picture on the left is a non-herniated disk. The picture on the right, where the light blue is pushing out of the teal is the extrusion pushing on the nerve (dark blue). My MRI looked exactly like this.