Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Cervical Dystonia

So I thought I would give an update on what has kept us busy these days. As some of you know Steve's neck has been bothering him for some time. Since we moved it has progressively gotten worse. But In the last few months it seems to worsen at an even quicker rate. He had been seeing a Spine and neck specialist and now a Neurologist. He has been diagnosed with Cervical Dystonia. This is involuntary jerking of the head and neck. His case happens to be extremely painful. In fact he has been unable to work for 3 weeks and for 2 weeks he could not get out of bed. He has a hard time driving and can't drive most of the time and eating is a challenge. It looks similar to Parkinsons. We have found that this permanent and may continue to get worse. We will be searching for ways to lessen the pain and the jerking and learn how to control it as much as possible, but there really isn't much known about this and it is different for everyone. Today he flew back to Utah to work and is tired and sore, but I know he is glad to be working. I just wanted to thank all of you that have had us in your prayers. We know this is only the beginning. Steve is so amazing. Even with the excruciating pain he is in he never complains and just keeps on going. We love him and appreciate all that he does for our family. The kids are handling it great and have pitched in so much. There are many u- tube videos about this. He is in about the middle of the 2 extremes. Not mild, but certainly not the worst. And during all of this, in May Steve took back Xavier in Utah so he travels there during the week and comes home to CO for the weekend. Anyway we love all of you and miss and family and friends that we are away from.

1 comment:

Down in the Sun said...

We are so sorry to hear about all of the pain that Steve has been in. We are glad that they now know what it is but hope that they will be able to treat it in some way that will lessen the pain. You guys continue to be in our prayers.