My Essay on Dr. Oz’s The Good Life: “I Was a Medical Mystery”

I’m really proud of my newest essay, friends! I got to write about my medical days, which is one of my favorite topics, and it brought back A LOT of memories, to say the least. The piece How Doctors Almost Missed the Fact That My Spine Was Compressing My Brain Stem ran on Dr. Oz’s The Good Life last week and the one thing I kept thinking as I was writing it?

“Has it really been 22 years already?“

Alas, it has! Here’s an excerpt of the essay, which sort of reads like an episode of Grey’s Anatomy…

By this point, all my fears had vanished; I just wanted to get this surgery over with and know that everything was going to be OK. The long surgery was a success, and I had rods placed in my neck to fuse the rest of my spine and keep it from compressing my brain stem. Afterward, the neurosurgeon told us that when he removed the spine from the brain stem, the brain stem vibrated for more than 10 minutes because it had been under so much pressure for so long.

I spent three months at home recovering before going back to school. I had to wear a halo frame to keep my neck still while everything healed, but thankfully, everything healed and life slowly but surely went back to normal for me.

Looking back now, 22 years later, I have no doubt that it was my parents who saved my life with their insistence that I get an MRI. They never once wavered or blindly accepted the doctors’ excuses and assertions.

You can read the full essay here and I’d love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to email me anytime at mellow1422@aol.com and let’s chat! And of course, feel free to share my essay on Facebook, Twitter or even your local refrigerator. If you share on Twitter, be sure to tag me @melissablake so we can connect! I can’t wait to hear from you! Love you all… xoxo