There's No Place Like Home...

...and nothing like being free of pain, or at least pain that registers off the chart! Thanks, everyone, for your good wishes and special thanks to Josie for letting you all know that I had to be readmitted to the hospital. After about 4 days of excruciating pain that even Percocet wouldn't touch, a day in Emergency, and an ambulance ride to get a CT scan to check that everything was okay inside me, I ended up at my surgeon's office actually sobbing my heart out because of the pain. When I reminded him that I have a very high pain tolerance he replied, "I KNOW you have a high pain tolerance. I saw inside you!" So into the hospital I went for another week on a regimen to control the pain while the sciatic nerve settled down and I continued to heal.

I came home yesterday (Thursday) and slept through the night, waking only to take pain meds around 6:00 a.m. My "sweetie" is out washing his Jeep right now because he'd like to take me for a short drive to enjoy the sunshine and fresh air. So off I go to have a quick shower and get dressed - quick for me probably means about an hour as I'm still moving veeeeerrrrry slowly.

I'll take my camera with me - you never know when you might get a good shot of something.

ABC Wednesday - Round 4 A is for Aching Back

Oy vey! My aching back! I figured I might as well incorporate an update on my back surgery along with our new Round 4 (already!) of ABC Wednesday, hosted by the lovely Denise Nesbitt.

I've been home just one week and it's only been two weeks since the actual surgery. In some ways it seems longer and in some ways it seems like yesterday I was coming out of the anaesthetic with pain levels at 9+....now the pain seems to hover around 5 or 6 and if I'm really really lucky I can actually sleep for 5 or 6 hours without waking up craving pain meds. I'm still using the "granny walker" but did manage to do the stairs yesterday. I had no choice, since my surgeon was expecting me at 1:15 pm to remove all 28 staples. The incision has healed nicely, so they say, but it will be a lot longer for all the insides to heal up and be strong.

Inside me, I now have 7 screws and 3 fusions! Dr. McYummy showed me my post-op X-ray and I think I look a lot better on the inside than on the outside right now. hah Last night around 11:00 pm, just as I was settling for the night, excuciating pain began in my legs. Legs? Yes, my legs! I think I walked too far or too much or maybe it was doing the stairs, but.... all night long, my legs were screaming with pain resulting in no real sleep until around 4:00 pm this afternoon. Tomorrow I plan on going up and down the stairs once and then I'll stay upstairs for the rest of the day. Hopefully, I'll be okay.

So there you have it - A is for aching back. Hopefully, next week B will be for better. I'll try to visit you all, but please understand that as much as I love to visit, it's still really hard for me to sit up for very long at a time. Happy Wednesday, everyone, and let's hear it for Round 4.

I'm Home

Hi everyone! This will be very brief as it's still extremely difficult for me to sit up for long. I still also have a lot of pain and am on vert strong painkillers. So just to let you know, I'm home and will give more details of my "advenuture" at another time. It was bad. More and more forceful pain that I could ever imagine. I lost a lot of blood causing the surgery to go on an extra hour and a half. My blood pressure plummeted and is still quite low. Thanks for all the well wishes and you'll be hearing from me more often again quite soon.

Gotta



go




take











pain meds,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Daughter #2 posting an update

Mom's not going to be home until at least wednesday. Her blood pressure is a bit wonky still, so they are keeping her until it settles down and also until she can do the stairs with the physiotherapist.

She appreciates all your well wishes, and assures you she is doing just fine and will post here herself when she gets home :)

The Big Day

If you've been following this blog for at least a year, you'll know that I've been having a lot of trouble with my lower back. For more information, you can read my previous posts about it here or here or here.
Briefly, I have spinal stenosis, two more discs that are herniated, and something called spondylolisthesis which happens when the spine, which interconnects to one another, slips forward onto the vertebrae below. I can feel and hear the grating and once a friend even heard it when she was standing about six feet away from me at the time.
So tomorrow is the big day when I arrive at the hospital at 7:00 am (PST) to prep for my surgery which is scheduled for 9:00 am. I've had all the pre-op stuff done (5 vials of blood taken, an ECG, chest x-ray, meetings with a nurse and the anaesthetist) and phoned the surgeon's office today to confirm all is a go. My daughter is coming to get me tonight and I'll sleep over there because she's only 5 minutes from the hospital and she's driving me there in the morning and will keep my belongings until the next day.
I'm hoping to be home by Saturday - as long as everything proceeds smoothly, I've been told I'll stay 4 days in the hospital. I personally think that's not long considering the actual operation takes 4 hours and then I'm in recovery for another 4 hours. But then, I'll probably rest better in my own home. The total recovery time is 3 months in a brace so after that I'll be getting back to the gym and the pool and get out walking more and more. I'm actually considering myself lucky to have the surgery done at this time of year because when I get to take that brace off, it'll be spring and I'll be all ready to romp.
Now don't think I'm not scared! Well, not scared actually, but rather very anxious. At the back of my mind is that niggly little worry that something bad might happen, but I refuse to allow it access to the front of my mind. I'll leave it up to all you, my faithful readers, to send up a little prayer, think good thoughts for me, or even just cross your fingers and toes. Now that I'm so happy having found love again, I have so much to live for.
Maybe Josie will put something on her blog to let you all know I made it through but I'll be sure to post when I get home and I'll tell you all the gory details....just kidding. Have a great week everyone!