I'm still here, and I'm relatively pain free.
When I woke up on Monday afternoon, it was a bit of a mind fuck to be honest. I looked at my wife, and in my head I'm thinking, "Shit. My back feels great. They must have me on some nice painkillers." Then logic crept in.
"Wait a second. They wouldn't give me painkillers while I was still under anesthesia. They would have to know my pain level and go from there. Otherwise, they'd probably kill me. Right?!?" (Keep in mind, all of this is running through my head over the course of a second and a half.)
I'm still looking at my wife at this point, and the look on my face goes from confusion to pure joy.
"Hey baby!"
I sat in my hospital room for almost 7 hours before the nurses actually pressed me on my pain. They asked how I was feeling.
"I'm doin' great."
"Are you feeling any pain?"
"No. Not really"
"Well, on a scale of 1 to 10, what would you say that you're at?"
"About a 6, but you have to realize that I was at about an 8 before the surgery. And, that was with Dilaudid."
I did have a couple of "complications". Your disc is supposed to be somewhat of a spongy consistency. When my doctor opened my back up, the disc was entirely calcified. It was essentially bone. They had to chip away at it with a drill to get it out. It hadn't fused to my spine, so it was floating between my discs, (which was my L5 and S1 by the way. I thought it was between L4 and L5.) so when I stood, I had sharp bone pinching my spinal cord. No wonder I was in so much pain.
The calcification usually doesn't occur in someone unless they are a lifelong, heavy smoker. The doctor was shocked to find out that I didn't smoke or drink. I never have. He said I have the back of a 65 year old man that has been smoking for the last 50 years or more. I clearly have multiple back surgeries in my future.
Since the disc had to be drilled away piece by piece, what would have been a one hour procedure turned into four hours. The doctor also had to move some of my nerves around to get all of the pieces out. As a result, I have had some nerve/numbness issues on my left side. For the first two or three days, I couldn't feel most of my left arm or anything in three fingers in my left hand. As of 11pm last night, and currently, I have zero..no...nada feeling in my left leg. It's completely dead. When I'm walking, I don't even feel my foot touching the ground. Supposedly, I should get the feeling back in the next few days. If not, I may have to walk with a cane for a while.
Sure beats the pain or the collapsing bullshit that I've had to deal with for the last few months. By the way, even with the numb leg, I haven't had a loss of my legs.
All in all, I call things a success.
When I woke up on Monday afternoon, it was a bit of a mind fuck to be honest. I looked at my wife, and in my head I'm thinking, "Shit. My back feels great. They must have me on some nice painkillers." Then logic crept in.
"Wait a second. They wouldn't give me painkillers while I was still under anesthesia. They would have to know my pain level and go from there. Otherwise, they'd probably kill me. Right?!?" (Keep in mind, all of this is running through my head over the course of a second and a half.)
I'm still looking at my wife at this point, and the look on my face goes from confusion to pure joy.
"Hey baby!"
I sat in my hospital room for almost 7 hours before the nurses actually pressed me on my pain. They asked how I was feeling.
"I'm doin' great."
"Are you feeling any pain?"
"No. Not really"
"Well, on a scale of 1 to 10, what would you say that you're at?"
"About a 6, but you have to realize that I was at about an 8 before the surgery. And, that was with Dilaudid."
I did have a couple of "complications". Your disc is supposed to be somewhat of a spongy consistency. When my doctor opened my back up, the disc was entirely calcified. It was essentially bone. They had to chip away at it with a drill to get it out. It hadn't fused to my spine, so it was floating between my discs, (which was my L5 and S1 by the way. I thought it was between L4 and L5.) so when I stood, I had sharp bone pinching my spinal cord. No wonder I was in so much pain.
The calcification usually doesn't occur in someone unless they are a lifelong, heavy smoker. The doctor was shocked to find out that I didn't smoke or drink. I never have. He said I have the back of a 65 year old man that has been smoking for the last 50 years or more. I clearly have multiple back surgeries in my future.
Since the disc had to be drilled away piece by piece, what would have been a one hour procedure turned into four hours. The doctor also had to move some of my nerves around to get all of the pieces out. As a result, I have had some nerve/numbness issues on my left side. For the first two or three days, I couldn't feel most of my left arm or anything in three fingers in my left hand. As of 11pm last night, and currently, I have zero..no...nada feeling in my left leg. It's completely dead. When I'm walking, I don't even feel my foot touching the ground. Supposedly, I should get the feeling back in the next few days. If not, I may have to walk with a cane for a while.
Sure beats the pain or the collapsing bullshit that I've had to deal with for the last few months. By the way, even with the numb leg, I haven't had a loss of my legs.
All in all, I call things a success.
2 comments:
Very glad that you are on the path to mending... you are in my thoughts!
So good to hear! I was hoping to hear good news soon. Yaaay! I know you have a long way to go, and that it's not going to be a bed of roses, but what a relief that you are not in so much pain!
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