Hanaukka!

There is a group of Jewish families that have settled in our small town.  Super neat people-as a deacon I have worked with the rabbi on various situations involving the homeless.  At one time one of their group ran a shelter in Bozeman.  Now I must tell you that this group is Messianic-which means they accept Jesus as the final piece in the puzzle.  They observe all the Jewish holidays, Sabbaths and traditions, but they add the worship of Jesus as Messiah.  About four years ago, it was decided to add a menorah to the Christmas decorations downtown.  Some of the men went to work in their shops and made this beauty:

I don't know if the glass lights were hand made, but they kind of look like they might have been.  Very nice!

On to other things-Millie is doing well.  She had a reaction to one of the pain meds so they've changed it to something else.  She said this one works better.  She should be able to go home tomorrow.  Now comes the hard work and the long healing process.

As for my recuperation, I had an MRI and they found a ruptured disc.  I had one set of pain injections two weeks ago that did absolutely nothing.  They tried another drug that gave me some pretty interesting side effects-my hands and feet went numb.  I have the number to the orthopedic office memorized!  I had issues with some of the schedulers in the office-one made me wait three weeks for those injections.  And the knee doc's scheduler was condescending when I called and asked for a referral to the spine surgeon.  This is someone we've known for years-he repaired Stan's back, Millie's neck, and my nephew's femur after a nasty auto accident.  He calls me "Mrs. Santa."  The scheduler acted like I was too stupid to know what I was talking about and why would I want to go to a "surgeon?"  I told her to just pass the message along to Dr. LeGrand, and sure enough yesterday he called me and said he had gone over my MRI with, of course, the spine surgeon.  I need another set of injections that should relieve the pain and give us a definite diagnosis.  The hint was that eventually I'll have to have back surgery.  Not something I really want, but when you have that much pain you become willing to do anything.  Then a week after the shots I will see the spine guy's PA to see what my treatment will be.  While I had Dr. LeGrand on the phone I complained about some of the schedulers' behavior.  The next two calls I got were back to back-griping works if you reach the right person!

Oh yeah, and the guy that I had so much trouble with?  When that office called, I talked to a woman and she told me she just started working for Dr. Slocum yesterday.  Hmmm-wonder where that guy went-do you suppose they got rid of him?  The only downside is the soonest I could get in to get the next shots is next Thursday.  I don't want to wait, but any port in a storm...............