Help a Bro-seph Out- Joey's Neck Fusion

Hello! My name is Crystal and I am Joey's older, but much cooler, sister :).

Joey has had tons of back/neck pain for quite some time. A few weeks back, he started noticing that he was having some numbness in his right arm and was unable to use it like normal. After a visit with his chiropractor, she suggested some Xrays be taken as this seemed like more needed to be done than just a good ol'fashion back/neck crackin'. After a few trips to the walk-in with nothing more than a few prescriptions of prednisone, our dad, Chuck, decided on Thursday, December 22nd, that enough was enough and brought Joey to the emergency room in Fargo. 14 hours of hanging out, a lengthy MRI (Joey was NOT impressed with being in a tiny tube for 90 minutes), and they left Friday morning being told Joey has the start of degenerative disc disease and several discs in his neck were experiencing major inflammation. They told him to go home and rest and once the inflammation has subsided, surgery would be the next step. Over the weekend, Joey lost full use of his right side and his left side also started to lose function. Christmas night, Joey, Dad and Anne decided that as nothing had changed with his pain levels and no improvement was happening, they would go back to the walk-in on Monday in Fargo. After further evaluation from yet another doctor, they decided he needed to be admitted to be evaluated by a neurologist. He was seen by an extremely badass little lady who was on the ball. After reviewing his MRI, she found that Joey's extremely compressed spinal cord needed to be operated on ASAP. She would have preferred to have done surgery Monday, but they had to opt for Tuesday morning.

Tuesday morning, Ol'Joseph went into surgery about 9am. He had his C3-4 and C4-5 discs in his neck fused. Side note, as I never knew this is how it went, they did this surgery by going through the front part of his neck by his throat, scary huh? While fusing his discs, she noted that the pressure from the compressed spinal cord had left a small divet in the soft tissues of the disc. She said it had started to spring back to normal already but that could potentially have a risk if it bounces back to fast. After surgery, badass neuro-lady came to give us an update. She said the surgery had gone as she had hoped. Joey's functionality was still unknown as he was sedated and intubated to help him recoup a little. They were going to reduce the sedation and give him a neurological exam to see where the functionality of his hands, arms and legs were at. He wasn't able to do a whole lot but could lift his arms a tiny bit. He also had a post-op CT and MRI. The CT showed some calcification on the back side of his neck (the view would be like looking at his neck if he was going for a back massage, side of his neck) from the spinal cord being compressed. He will have another surgery tomorrow, December 29th, on this back side to remove the calcified parts and potentially fuse more. After this surgery, the surgeon is hoping we will know more about where his functionality stands. We aren't really what the next few days or even weeks look like for Joey yet, but we know the road is going to be long. Way longer than Joey will want to deal with, if you know Joey, you know what I mean haha. Right now, we are just hoping to help raise a little money to help pay his bills and what not until he is back at it and able to get back to work. I will try to keep everyone updated with the latest news on here.

Thank you to everyone who has checked in, called, texted, messaged, and sent a thought or prayer his and our ways. We really appreciate all the love.

PS... Hades is in good hands with Steph and Nate and getting lots of loves. I'm sure he misses his dad, but he will be home soon enough with his big, giant baby of a dog.