Meeting the Specialist

Hello again,

I had my first appointment with the specialist in Spring of 2006 I believe. We ended up having to wait for about 2 hours to meet with him b/c he was running late. I had no idea how this appointment was going to go and I had so many questions that I feared I would forget to ask when I actually met with the Specialist. I have a terrible tendancy to do that. Meeting him went fine I think-I forgot a ton of questions that I had intended to ask. I remember him suggesting surgery and in my head I was like no way are you getting me on a table and have me cut open! I was convinced that there had to be an alternative to having surgery that maybe was a little less invasive and scary. So I said no to surgery but I remember him saying something like we could put it on the back burner as if to say that we would come back to it. I just remember thinking- what are you talking about back burners...surgery is not happening. I was so sure I would find another alternative but in the end, I guess maybe he knew that surgery was about the only option for me. I was also surprised that he was ok with me trying a chiropractor who we had started seeing not long before we met with the Specialist. Most doctors seem to be against chiropractors. Though overall I thought that he knew what he was talking about which is big b/c I have had alot of experience with doctors who don't seem to know very much. Also he made jokes that were funny which helped ease the tension a little.
By the end of our first meeting we decided to try what ever alternatives to surgery there were. The alternatives we chose were to continue with the chiropractor for the time being and see if that would help and to include physio and excercises. Also I planned on doing what ever research I could to see if there were other options out there that I could try. Though as I would later find out, for my case there wasn't very many options other than what I was about to try.