Everything Is Weird

I had therapy today, and had to leave a little early to get Charlie to an appointment. He’d been having some lower back pain for a while and our pediatrician had told us to see an orthopedist.

As I left, the therapist said she hoped the appointment would go well.

“Me too,” I said, “but with how things are going, they’ll probably find something weird.”

We drove to the appointment and sat in the waiting room for a long time. Our appointment had been moved to an earlier time because the doctor had an emergency surgery later in the day, so I assumed he was just trying to get through other patients he’d rescheduled.

About 40 minutes into our wait, Charlie noted that his back hadn’t bothered him for a couple of weeks, and maybe we should just leave. I thought we should still keep the appointment since we were already there, and before we could finish discussing it, they called Charlie’s name.

First they took us into a room where Charlie had some x-rays. I noted what looked like a Halloween decoration in the room – a small paper skeleton made of construction paper – and wondered if that was there for Halloween or if they kept year-round.

Then we went to another room to wait for the doctor.

That room had replicas of spines in it.

That was definitely the right room for us.

The doctor barely introduced himself when he came in – he dove right into what was happening, showing us the back x-rays and noting that Charlie’s looked normal at first glance, but looking closely at his lower spine, there was something slightly off. He described it in more technical terms I couldn’t follow, but the gist is, he found something weird.

Charlie may have an Arnold-Chiari malformation or a tethered spinal cord or occult spina bifida of the sacrum (in this instance, “occult” does not mean mystical, though that would be on-brand for us; instead if means “not accompanied by readily discernible signs or symptoms”). Or this spinal thing could be something else entirely. And it could be congenital or acquired. Whatever it is, the next step is to get an MRI and then go back to the ortho guy.

Exactly one year ago, Andy was diagnosed with metastatic cancer. I was a little nervous about having another medical appointment on this date, but at least this does not seem to be something serious, just something weird. We should know more when we go back on November 24.

I usually like weirdness but I could do with a nice helping of normalcy right about now.

In other news – Meowy is adjusting to life without her tail, but I think she will be happier once we take the doughnut off.