Mary,
Sometimes we just need a day or two to be mad, feel down and have a 'pitty party' for ourselves. But we all then must get up, dust ourselves off and decide to kick some spine rear! You are headed in the right direction by seeing your dr. Start making appts with surgeons now, don't trust just one surgeon. What happens is they treat you, if it fails, they may try something else; but eventually get to the end of their knowledge and guess what happens? They move on, sorry we couldn't help you (if you get even that) and you need to see someone else. At the end of the day, it is not their problem if you are better or not. They are taught to distance their emotions from the patients and some are REALLy good at it
I can't think of many questions right now, probably will come to my mind as I lay in bed tonight
I would have him show you your MRI films and point to and explain (in people terms) exactly what is going on. Why does he reccommend what he is reccommending? What would he do if this were his wife/family member? If he wants to do the procedure/surgery, what is his experience? How many of the ?treatment/procedure/surgery? has he done? What is the success vs. failure rate? How long will you be down? What will happen if you do nothing, will it make you worse? What if you get treatment, would he forsee future problems or does he think that it will be good for life (obviously they can't say for sure; but for instance my surgeon said that my spine should never need any more treatment; which I know is an opinion; but at least he gave his opinion and I took it as that). If he is referring you out, why the dr he chose? Does he personally know him/her? Buddies? Colleagues? Best of the best in your area? I was referred to a dr early on because my dr. was buddies with him, well, it was crappy treatment and I naively just went and trusted him. You can't get to many opinions.
Maybe see a few of different kinds of dr's, so it's not just surgery reccommendations (although that may be your only choice). I know this is asking a lot of your time; but trust me, you will not regret doing your homework. If you rush into somehting and it does not work, you will kick yourself in the rear forever (I say this from experience). All any of us can do is make the best choice for us, with the knowledge that we have. I wanted to know going into surgery, that I had done all my research (saw good, bad and ugly outcomes), researched my alternatives, and did what I felt was best for me. I wanted to have no regrets and I don't. I felt that I owed it to my husband and kids to get better, to keep fighting, to get better and get the old me back. I felt my best shot at the above mentioned was surgery. Others may choose to wait for better technology; but the way I saw it was that technology is always going to be getting better. So, I may wait for a new one to come, then there will be another on the horizon, so might as well wait for that one, and then so on. I figured if I can get 10-20 years out of this surgery, that the technology then will be good enough to fix me again (this is a gamble; but one I felt I had to take)
Discuss it with your family; but be prepared if you get the 'it can't be bad enough to need surgery' attitude, or 'I have pain all the time' or 'you seem to be fine, you still take care of the kid and house' etc. People not in this kind of pain, DO NOT GET IT. My family all thinks I am nuts for having surgery, with the exclusion of my husband, dad and step-mom. They think that I should just tough it out and that it could even be 'in my head'. That is why I LOVE this site. I have never ever been one to 'chat' online, no chat rooms, forums or whatever. Thought people who had online 'friends' were weird, didn't have a life, and lots of other hateful things. It was not until my pain and subsequently finding this site, that I got it. I am sure that these boards have saved lifes, just by having a listening ear that 'gets it'.