Made Up Words

I've been having a lot of pain in my lower back in the last month. In October I had similar pains and found out it was due to an infected cyst on my tailbone. I could get into all the gross details, but I won't; it grosses me out just to think about some of the stuff that transpired back there. Anyway, last week I went to my doctor cause the pain was getting to the point that I couldn't sleep well. She promptly sent me to get an x-ray at the hospital and gave me some muscle relaxers and antibiotics (just in case it's an infection again). Two days later my doctor's office calls me to tell me a bunch of medical terms about what the x-ray pertained and that she now wants me to get an MRI and they went ahead and scheduled it for me. Thanks.

Last Friday I went to Kentuckiana Diagnostics to have the MRI done. I was nervous about it since I have some issues with being confined in small spaces. I managed to make it through the twenty minute procedure with minimal panic attacks. Good thing I didn't have to be strapped down like I thought you did for one of these, so that helped. Have you ever had this done? I totally wasn't expecting the noises the machine made. I figured out where the sound effects for those cheesy 60's & 70's outer space movies came from. On Tuesday my doctor's office called back to tell me what they found (again with a bunch of medical, made-up sounding terms) and that now she's referring me to a Neurologist. Thanks again.

Wednesday I decided that I wanted to know, specifically and in layman's terms, what my diagnosis was. I stopped by the MRI place and asked for a copy of the report and films from my mri. They were happy to provide me with both in about twenty minutes. I was so excited! I got back in my car and headed back to work. As soon as I sat down at my desk I pulled out the films first and decided that I didn't know what the hell I was looking at other than various views of my spine. Then I decided that maybe the report would help break down the pictures better.

I'm not going to copy the whole report, but let me just give you a few sentences:
"....mild impression on the dural sac and there is also a small annular rent."
"A Schmorl's node was noted in the superior aspect of the S1 vertebral body. The conus was normal."
"First degree spondylolisthesis at L5-S1 causing mild central spinal stenosis..."

Where to start?

-First of all, there are no spelling errors in those quotes. The words in question are spelled correctly.

-I have had a hard time finding anything in Google or WebMD for any of this stuff.

-Annular Rent?? When I read that, I think I thought something like, Yeah, I'm pretty sure our annular rent is about $12,000, but maybe they think it should be more. I cannot convey how much Ben and I have laughed about that.

Thank God that at least the conus was normal! (If anyone knows what that means, please let me know)

If I can figure out the scanner at work, I'll post a copy of the report. Until then, habba enjoy! And let me know if anyone can decipher any of the above listed items.