I am feeling great for the first time in almost two weeks! I’ve been 80% pain free today and it has done wonders for my mood. It’s amazing how feeling good can be such a mood lifter. I had a very good visit with Doctor Cheng yesterday. He is one of the few doctors in this country that knows what ACM is and has two patients that have ACM-1. One of them is six months post-op and doing great. The other has not had the surgery. Dr. Cheng and I had a good talk, reviewed my symptoms and he agreed that a new MRI is needed. I have a referral for the MRI, which is already scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. He is also getting me an authorization from my insurance to see ACM specialist, Dr. Jon Weingart at Johns Hopkins. We also talked options. For those of you who have read anything about ACM you’ve most likely read that there are pretty much two options available (three, if you count Divine intervention, but who’s counting?). Those options are 1) learn to manage and live with the pain, or 2) decompression surgery. The ACM is a structural defect in my body. No drugs, massage, physical therapy or voodoo witchery is going to fix it. All they can do is help manage the pain and other symptoms. Be that as it may I think it’s important to let you know that I am not making any firm decisions against or for surgery until after I review the MRI with Dr. Weingart and see how frequent and intense the pain and other symptoms are over the next 3 months. If there is a syrinx then there really is no other option but to have the decompression surgery. When all the facts are in a decision will be made.