The Broken Soldier

Finally we received authorization for consultation with a neurosurgeon. We’re still confused about what is actually covered, just the doctor’s visit or the procedures he prescribes, but Sarah and I are happy that I’ll be seeing a neurosurgeon soon.

But this victory, from experience I’ve learned getting the Army to do what it is supposed to do is a ‘victory,’ may be tainted. There is still confusion, possibly feigned, surrounding this matter. Let me explain.

As I wrote in a post just after Sarah and I returned from Fort Knox the last time, you remember, the trip for the MRI?, the MRI technicians both claimed the MRI generated was unusable. This was because my back and legs were spasming uncontrollably as a result of aggravating my injuries with a 9-10 hour car ride from Michigan to Fort Knox, KY. As such, the image would be too blurry to show what was really going on. But Dr. Toon, a man whose performance has inspired at least a few other posts here, wrote in his report that my lumbar spine is ‘normal’ according to the MRI. What????! How can an unusable MRI help one conclude anything about the nature of the body part viewed? Answer: It can’t.

As well, in Dr. Toon’s first report he wrote, consistent with my other health care providers, that the first MRI showed degenerative disc disease (DDD). Signs of DDD show up as areas of black on the affected disc on MRIs. While there are treatments for the symptoms of DDD, the disease itself is not treatable let alone reversible. To miraculously get a ‘normal’ read on an MRI is not only a contradiction of conventional medical science, it’s also a contradiction of his own previous opinion.