6 Flags - Take Two

We made a very impromptu decision to go to 6 Flags in St. Louis for Father's Day. We ended up getting season passes for four of the eight of us. With each season pass, you get a coupon book which has several "bring a friend for free" coupons for different days. Father's Day was one of those days. So, on Sunday morning, we decided to forgo church and head to St. Louis for a day of fun. We also invited my friend Orlando, who likes spur of the moment adventures.

Loren, Donna and Tim

Andrew and Orlando

Veronica, T.J., Josh and Scooby Doo!

Josh and Tim

Donna, Andrea, and Loren

T.J. and Orlando

The Brooks'

The Brooks' y nuestro buen amigo, Orlando

From Shoulder Pain to a Pain in the Neck

After going to therapy for my shoulder for a week. I woke up one morning a few weeks back with what felt like a pinched nerve in my neck. Every time I went into therapy for the shoulder my therapist would ask how I was doing. I would tell him that the shoulder was the same, and I also now had a pain in my neck. The pain didn't go away for around 2 weeks. Finally, he did some test on my neck by moving my head into different positions. He decided it was best to send me back to the sports doctor this time for neck x-ray. I really thought this was going overboard, and that it would go away eventually.

Anyway, I was surprised to find out that the x-ray did indeed show I had some miss alignments in my C5 vertebrae. It was enough that the doctor thought I should get an MRI. The MRI results showed that I had what the doctor called "severe disk disease". This basically means I had 2 disks that are squeezing out of from the vertebrae, one of which is pushing into my spinal chord.

The doctor said I should see a spinal specialist. So, on Wednesday of this week, I saw the spinal doctor. She again showed me the x-rays and MRI and did some movement tests. She said that I have arthritis in the bone (little pointed spurs on the edge of the bone) and disk degeneration. Both doctors theorize that this could be causing the pain in my shoulder and arm. For now she gave me a cortisone shot in the shoulder. In two weeks, I will go back to see if that helped. If not, she will move to a shot in the neck, an epidural I think. This means a day off of work, no driving afterward, etc.. So far it still hurts. Stay tuned...

The week in review.

Monday we took the family to St. Louis to see my brother, Ronn and his family. We went to 6 Flags on Tuesday and had great time. The lines were really short, and the weather was just about right. It was fairly hot, but not unbearable, and there was no rain.



Wednesday we went to Purina Farms, and saw there animals for a couple hours. After Purina we went to Merimac Caverns and took the tour. I think everyone liked the caverns, but it was pretty chilly down there.





When we got back on Thursday, inspired by my brother's pool, I decided to fix the area where we keep our little blue pool. Last year, I had just built a sand pile to make the ground level. Well, of course, sand washes away, and I knew at the time it wasn't a great idea, but it more or less lasted for the summer. I was just to lazy to dig out the yard. So, I decided to do it right. I had to first remove all the sand, and then start digging out the ground to make a level space. All of this took about 6 hours. The entire time, I had my shirt off, and was sweating profusely. Now 3 days later, I am still in terrible pain from the worst sunburn I've ever had. Of course, I didn't put any sun screen on. Idiot...