Update: Surgery Rescheduled - I'm Going Under Tomorrow

Messy.  Confusing.  Hectic.  Such has been my life in the last 72 hours.

I was scheduled to have surgery on my spine next Monday, the 19th.  It was supposed to be in West Phoenix, more than 90 minutes from where my wife is now working, and where my daughter is being taken care of during the day.  The hospital is supposedly top of the line, but designed for same day surgeries.  I was scheduled for a 5-7 day stay.  The hospital was so far away, I was expecting no visitors, and the hospital had no internet access for patients!!  In 2011?!  FML.  Needless to say, I was not looking forward to my stay.

I received a phone call on Thursday morning from my surgeon's office.  He had a last minute cancellation for a surgery this Monday morning.  Considering the recent complications I have been experiencing, and the major inconvenience the location of the other hospital would pose upon my family, he was offering me the first chance to take the place for the cancellation.

Photos: My Spine Is Much Worse Than Imagined

Note:  The images below are of my body.  They are the property of myself and my respective doctors.  They may not be reproduced without my consent.  Thank you for understanding.

As you know, I had a discectomy on June 20th.  I had a couple of minor complications, but things seemed successful.

Within the first two weeks, however, the pain came back with a vengeance.  Pain medication quickly had no effect.  I started receiving regular epidural injections.  Every two weeks.  At some appointments, two at a time.  No effect.

With every passing day, my mobility worsened.  I started collapsing like I had before.  I'm at a point now where I cannot walk without a cane.  My spinal surgeon scheduled another set of surgeries for later this month.  He had me complete an MRI last week to get an idea of what we were looking at.  I had a chance to take a look at them yesterday morning.  What I saw was so much worse than what anyone could have imagined.

Update On My Spinal Issues: Surgery, Long Recovery Ahead (Photos)

As many of you know, I had surgery on June 20th, to remove to the disc between my L5 and S1 vertebrae. After the procedure, I felt amazing.  Sadly, the joy was short lived.

By June 30th, I had to have my first epidural to help ease the pain.  The pain was so bad, they completed a series of MRIs to verify that I didn't a hematoma in my spine.  I didn't.  The epidural had no effect.  I had two additional epidurals on July 14th, and again on August 4th.  Again, no results.

I had a chance to see my surgeon last Friday, the 19th.  Normally when an MRI is completed so soon following a discectomy, the films are typically very difficult to read.  There are numerous air pockets, shadows and open spaces that can be misinterpreted by the radiologist.  When it came to my images, however, the radiologist made it very clear:  The partial disc remaining in L5/S1 had re-herniated in the space left open by the removed disc.  It was now pressing up against my spinal cord.

My doctor said he always go in and remove the rest of disc, and end it at that.  The problem with that option, is that there is the likelihood that in three months I would be back in surgery.  Also, the two discs above my L5/S1 are having problems.  Considering my weight and frame, my spine could eventually tumble like dominoes.

The route we decided to go was a two-part surgery.  I am having a graft implanted, and then a fusion between my L5 and S1.  I am scheduled for the implant on the morning of September 19th.  The fusion is scheduled for scheduled for September 20th.

In case you were wondering about the process involved, I brought pictured and diagrams.  Pour yourself a drink.  Take a seat.  This may take a moment.

Everything takes place over the course of two surgeries.  During the first one, an incision is made along my "bikini area", (I look amazing in a bikini, BTW) and my intestines are gently set aside.  My surgeon will make an incision at what would be the front of my spine, and scoop out the remaining pieces of disc that are currently in there.  He will then insert a plastic graft, sort of like a fake disc.  It looks like this:

Model of graft in L4/L5 disc

The photo above is one that I took of a model at my surgeon's office.  The graft that you see is much like the one that will be implanted in my spine.  It's hollow and will be filled with bone fragments, that, from what I think I understand, will eventually turn into bone?  There are a couple of major differences between the one in the pic and the type that they'll use on me.  In the model, the graft is in the L4/L5 slot.  My herniation is in L5/S1, so imagine the graft one place lower.  Also, since L5/S1 is the lowest disc on the spine, and the one closest to the hip bone, the long/rectangular graft that you see would bump into the hip bone if inserted.  I will need a thicker graft, with more of a square shape.

Since my surgery isn't scheduled until 11:30AM, they won't have enough time to complete both procedures on the same day.  The next morning is when the magic happens.

An incision is made - this time on my back (cue suspenseful music).  A set of four screws are set into my vertebrae, two on each side to secure, what is essentially a titanium brace, to my spine.  My first two questions, as I'm sure are yours:  Will I set off airport metal detectors? And, Is the fusion magnetic? Can I still get an MRI?  Fortunately, the answer to both are No.  I can still get an MRI.  Titanium is not magnetic.  From what I have been told the placement of the "anchors" should not be painful since bone does not have any nerve.

Keep in mind, the placement of my fusion will be one slot lower than that of the picture, since the model has a fusion of L4/L5, and I need a fusion of L5/S1.

So, what's in store after that?  A lot of lying down.  I'm required to wear a back brace for the next four months, as well as those really tight thigh highs that keep you from getting blood clots (I forget what they're called).

For the first four months after surgery, I'm not allowed to bend over, lift anything over 5 pounds or sit for more than ten minutes at a time.  To put it simply....

• Sleeping
• Netflix
• Video Games
• ...and a metric shitload of blogging.

My wife will be working full time, and Lennon will be in preschool (since there's no way in Hell I'll have the ability to care for her).  So, I apologize in advance for the posts on "this commercial I saw", or "Have you ever noticed how Coke makes you burp more than other sodas?"

I'm not going to enjoy it anymore than you will, believe me.

"I'm Baaaaack"

...In a limited capacity.  I've had some good news and bad news over the last week.  The good news is that I have a new laptop.  It's a dream compared to my old Vaio.  More memory.  Double the hard drive (and one that works!).  Roughly three times the processing speed.  And it only cost me the equivalent of a month's rent and auto insurance!  JOY!!!!

As I said before, buying a new laptop was only going to be about $150 more than getting it repaired.  You see, that's where Geek Squad fucks you.  Pay over $500 to get a two year old computer operational again, or drop $700 thirty feet to the right and walk out with a new machine.  Out of spite, I purchased this one at Office Max.  Besides, they seemed to have the best deal around.

In other news, my back is seriously FUCKED.  I saw my surgeon last week, and it looks like I have another procedure coming up soon.  When I had my discectomy on June 20th, only the herniated portion of disc was removed.  As they chipped away at the offending portion of disc, new disc material was exposed.

At first, it has the consistency of the center of a Tootsie Roll lollipop.  As time goes by, it becomes more gelatinous.  In my situation, it appears that the new disc material has gone into the space left open by the removal of the old disc.  In other words, I have the same herniation...on the same disc.  It's still cutting off my spinal cord from time to time.

I am in excruciating pain.  I had another epidural on Thursday of last week, but haven't seen any relief as of yet.  In the meantime, I'm trying to get my new machine to resemble something that I'm accustomed to.  Surprisingly, there wasn't much in the way of bloatware (preloaded software) out of the box.  I only had a small handful of card game trials and a couple of internet tool bars to delete.  ITunes is another story, altogether.  It will probably take weeks to get my account to look as crystal clear as it was previously.  Roughly 39,000 songs to reorganize....manually.  Ugh.

In any event, it's going to take me a few days to get back into my groove online.  Please have patience with me.  :)

I'm Still Here...Just Technologically Stinted

Hey everybody.

Just a quick update for the three of you subscribers that are left....LOL.  I haven't been able to post anything since last Friday as my laptop has crapped out on me.  The Geek Squad seems to think that my hard drive is in the process of going kaput.  If that is the case, I'm looking at a minimum of about $450 (that I don't have) to get it fixed.  Considering that my battery life is currently at about 15 minutes per charge, and that my computer crashes the entire network for a half an hour every time I turn it on, I think it might be worth an extra $150, and just get a new laptop.

That being said, it's going to take me a couple of days to transfer everything over from my old hard drive and get back to where I was before this whole fiasco started.

I also have an appointment with my spine surgeon tomorrow afternoon, and an epidural scheduled for Thursday.  Needless to say, this isn't going to be a fun week.  I don't know whether I'm more nervous about the prospect of having another surgery, or the possibility of being told that I don't need one.  I am hurting so bad right now.  I can't even describe how I'm feeling.  I try my best to get by without pain killers, since they usually don't work anyway, but it's getting difficult.

So...long story short....I will be posting later on this week.  I have some very interesting stuff in the pipeline.  Just bear with me.

Thanks.

It's Going To Be A Slow Blogging Weekend

Hey everyone.

I just wanted to take a moment to welcome my new readers/followers.  I've noticed that in the last couple of weeks, I have added quite a few followers on my RSS feed.  Hi there.  Don't be afraid to comment.  Hope you enjoy the site.

In related news, it's probably going to be a slow weekend for The Twitch.  I am in excruciating back pain, and it's only going to get worse.  Since my surgery, I have (for obvious reasons) been avoiding a number of things around the apartment.  So, I'm probably going to be doing a lot of bending in order to get some stuff done.  Not smart, but necessary.

We're also house sitting for my in-laws this weekend, trying to celebrate my wife's birthday tomorrow night and I would like to try to get 'Captain America' in there somewhere.

I have so many things that I want to write about.  In the pipeline, I have a number of posts that are going to be a little wordy.  I'm not used to writing such large pieces, and they'll probably look a bit out of place, but I have a number of things that I need to get off of my chest.

That being said, I may have some days with only 3 or 4 posts, and some with 15.  Depends on what I'm working on.  I'm also in the process of starting two additional sites (Probably not the best use of my time, but I really want to start making a professional go at blogging.  I'm on Social Security Disability until at least May of 2015, so I need to do something with my free time.  Besides, my monthly Social Security checks account for about 55% of what I used to make at my last job.  Every little bit of revenue helps.

You may see some changes in the way of layout in the next couple of weeks.  There may also be a small increase in the amount of advertising space taken up on my site.  Again, gotta pay the bills.

As you have probably noticed, the site has recently changed from thedailytwitch.blogspot.com to thetwitchonline.com.  If you haven't already changed the address in your bookmarks, please do so.  Google will be temporarily redirecting any hits onto the old "The Daily Twitch" site to the new "Twitch Online" site, but I'm not sure how long they will continue to in the future.

Also, if you are reading this via a feed, please take a moment and reset your feed to the new site.  Thanks.

I'm looking forward to keeping you all entertained and informed as to what's going on around me.  If you ever feel like dropping me a line, you can reach me at twitch@thetwitchonline.com.

Quick Medical Update aka I'm Having Surgery Tomorrow

So, I don't remember what I talked about on my last medical update, and it's 11PM, and I'm in no mood to read through past blog posts right now.

Here's what's going on......

Turns out that the disc that is between my L4 and L5 is herniated.  I knew that.  What I didn't know what that it was cutting off my spinal cord.  The disc above that one is almost just as bad.  Fortunately, it's still a couple of millimeters away from the cord at this point.  This explains the loss of bowel control and the inability to walk over the last three months.  In fact, for the last three days, I have had problems walking.  I have been stumbling and collapsing worse than any other time since this ordeal started.

Long story short,  I'm having spinal surgery tomorrow.  I have an excellent surgeon.  When Jennifer Grey injured her back on 'Dancing With the Stars', she flew to Scottsdale, AZ, after filming to see my doctor.  He is the official surgeon for the Phoenix Suns, the Phoenix Coyotes, and a number of other NBA teams.  I am in good hands.

I have, for obvious reasons, been feeling despondent in recent weeks.  I have a long, and motionless, recovery ahead of me.  For the next three to four weeks, per doctor's orders, I am to lie on my back in bed.  No walking.  No driving.

Maybe I'll start writing again.  I don't know.