I'll take BAD NEWS for $500, Alex....
The verdict is in. Yesterday's appointment with the orthopaedic was less than promising. Thanks to 9+ years in high volume, 911 EMS, that has mostly functioned under the "Spawn of Satan" System Status Management... (Grady & Metro), I have purchased my ticket to return to school this Fall. May I explain the X-Ray... The more solid chunks are the vertebrae of my lumbar spine. The dark spaces between are the disks. The two disks marked at the top are L2-L3 & L3-L4. The thin sliver is L4-L5. This disk is at 1/3 it's normal size. It has deteriorated. The next disk is L5-S1. It is decorated as well, but not as bad as the one above it. It is also displaced anteriorly (toward the front) leaving the posterior portions of the L5 &S1 vertebrae to grind against each other. Good explanation for the worsening, now debilitating pain I have endured for the last 3 months, for why my legs don't want to work, and for why I have completely collapsed to the floor twice - f