My Old School Part 2

The taller, central portion of the top photo is the front entrance to Neville High School and has come to be the "symbol" of the school; it's most recognizable trait. The tower is engraved on the side of all of our senior (12th year) rings.

The bottom two photos are of the front of the school's football stadium (American football).

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Update: I'm doing OK after surviving my myelogram. I'm down to a very sore back and some bad memories now.

The poor x-ray technician that was in there to assist the radiologist with my myelogram and to take the x-rays once he was satisfied with his dye injections, called to check on me today. I think she had a tougher time watching me go through that four times than I did to actually experience it.

The hard part now is that, for two nights I'm to sleep propped up on my back and my head is to never get level with my body, to help prevent the dye from entering my brain. That can cause a bad headache and I'm miserable trying to sleep in one position.

Thanks for your concern. I appreciate it. I'm doing all right, just really sore now.

My Old School Part 1 / Myelogram Update

These are a couple of pictures of my old high school. I took them when we went back to Louisiana the week after Christmas in December 2006.

This is Neville High School in Monroe, Louisiana. It was opened in 1931, and this past school year was it's 75th Anniversary of being a working high school.

The top two are to give you a good overall view of the front of the school, it's very elegant looking and is aging with lots of grace.

The bottom photo was taken on one side of the school, and is the entrance to the auditorium/theater. As a teen, the carved faces above the doors fascinated me. You just don't see schools built with this kind of detail and class any more.

I was blessed to have been able to attend school here. The education I got there prepared me well for college.

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Myelogram Update

Had I known exactly what I was in for yesterday, I might not have gone.

Due to four past surgeries, the radiologist had a tough time finding an opening through scar tissue to my spinal cord.

What normally would have been one set of shots to deaden the area, and one really tough one as he pressed the needle through the muscles to the spine for the tap, turned into 4 sets of shots and spinal taps. He couldn't get the dye to "flow" as he wanted it to until the fourth try.

The half hour procedure took one and a half hours because he had to do four complete procedures until he had the dye in my spinal column, with the dye flowing far enough up and down the column to see what they wanted to see.

After that was a CAT scan and then 4 hours of observation, which amounted to me laying there and the nursed coming in every 15 minutes for blood pressure and to ask if I was getting a headache.

He said I have a big bone spur pressing the nerve that gives feeling and strength in the outside half of my left leg, which is exactly where I hurt. Now it's up to the surgeon to decide what, if anything, he can do. I see the surgeon again in a couple of weeks.

It turns out that they want me (and anyone having this procedure) to be at rest for a minimum of 48 hours.

I'm doing ok, once the procedure was over and they left me alone, I've done pretty good. Just lots of muscle pain from the four places he put that honkin' big needle through my back muscles.

I should be back to work on Thursday, barring the headache they are hoping for me to avoid. The Dr. removes a bit of spinal fluid and then puts the dye in there, trying to avoid a drastic change in the pressure. If the dyes reaches and passes through the blood/brain barrier, one may get the grandaddy of all migraines, if he misjudged a bit, and the spinal column/fluid pressure changes the headache could come then as well. I'm hoping to avoid that more than they do.

Anyway, that's my sad story.