2 Years!

Well, here we are TWO years and five days post-op! At this point I would like to report that I am still a successful spinal decompression / fusion surgery recipient. Very little has changed in the way of pain since my last report except for a couple of minor details.

One detail is that I occasionally get what I believe is a 'phantom pain', I will get that nerve pain sensation, but it will be very short lived and with no intensity. Although this does still happen once in a while, it is occurring less frequently all the time.

The second detail is that with the dampness in cool weather I will get achy. Sometimes the ache will be quite painful, but nowhere near as painful as what was happening pre-surgery. I am assuming that the old timers are correct with all the arthritis wives tales about being able to predict the weather. This is something that I went into surgery knowing would more than likely happen. I will assume that as the years go on I may get more and more achy depending upon the weather. With any luck it will get no worse than it is now. Either way I will still be better off than I was before.

I will try to remember to get back and post at the year three mark, or if there is any significant changes. :D

ONE YEAR!!!

Today marks the one year mark for my surgery. As in previous posts I have to say that things have went very well. Pain has been virtually non existent. Last week I did have quite a bit of pain in the area of the surgery site, but I believe that it was muscle related from some canoeing the day before. Either way it went away without any meds or medical intervention.

I'm feeling quite lucky and considering I am at the one year mark with no regression or any sort of indication of problems I believe that I can put all of this behind me :)

6 Months!

Yesterday was the 6 month anniversary of me leaving the hospital after surgery. Since that time I have recovered and improved quite nicely. After my last update I started working again and have been for the last two months. I am happy to report that all is going well. I have noticed some relatively minor discomfort at the surgery site since beginning work, but it isn't even something that I would take a tylenol for. I am hoping that it doesn't worsen and am only attributing it to the difference of being physically active versus mainly laying around.

I was very fortunate with my first job since surgery because my general foreman and foreman are both gentlemen that I know and they have been following my recovery, so they are really looking out for me and my well being. They have been very understanding of my circumstances and are always willing to let me take the easier job if I need to, although I have not and do not anticipate the need to 'take it easy'.

Every once in a while I do get that 'nervy' sensation down my leg, but it is only minor and it quite honestly feels to me like what people report as a ghost pain. Either way it is not something that lasts any amount of time and required no medication.

Again my report is quite favorable and hopefully it stays that way.

4 Month update

Well, it has been 4 months already. Tomorrow we go see the surgeon and find out if I can get the okay to go back to work. I think that I will, I sure feel like I can. I'm starting to get a little impatient with all the waiting. With being pain free, having lost 50+ lbs and the cpap to correct my sleep apnea I'm raring to go.

As far as the spine goes I have not much new to report, I've been pain free since the last report. The only real difference is that with the last report if I tried to lift something too heavy I would really feel it at the surgical site. Now when I lift heavier things I don't feel it so much. There is occasionally a minor ache but I wouldn't even take a tylenol for it, which is amazing considering all the gabapentin and dilaudid that I was taking pre-surgery.

I have noticed that my back feels 'different' above the surgical site now. I don't know how to explain it, I'm hesitant to call it pain, but it feels kind of weird and uncomfortable at times. I suppose it's just that things are different on the inside and I'm going to have to adjust to it.

9 Weeks

Tomorrow I will be 9 weeks post surgery! And it's been 7 weeks since I last updated. I think that things have changed substantially enough that I should post my progress. And there has been a lot of progress.

First off, I have been off all pain meds for about three weeks now. That chemical cocktail that I was taking daily is now a thing of the past and none too soon. The first one that I came off of was the Gabapentin, which was a horrible experience. It made me irritable for days and quite dizzy feeling. Once it was out of my system I felt quite a bit better though. Once it was gone my doctor and I decided to go off of the hydromorph which in comparison was a much worse experience. I've always heard that coming off of 'opiods' could be a bad experience and now I know, it is. Some light reading of wikipedia tells me that it would feel just like it did, horrible.

Withdrawal: courtesy of Wikipedia

The short length of action of hydromorphone and other metabolic factors mean that the abstinence syndrome, or withdrawal, is brief but intense. A low dosing user of hydromorphone opting or otherwise forced to quit "cold turkey" can expect a withdrawal syndrome as intense as that of morphine but much more severe. It is compressed into a spike, peaking in 14 to 21 hours and resolving in 36 to 72 hours, provided the user is not taking other longer-acting opioids and has normal liver and kidney function. All of the effects of hydromorphone and its attendant withdrawal syndrome can be significantly lengthened by such factors. Possible but less common is the opposite: some patients require oral doses of hydromorphone as frequently as every 90 minutes, and the withdrawal syndrome can peak in as little as 9 hours. Users taking over 40 milligrams per day can experience painful withdrawal lasting up to two weeks with symptoms including constant shaking, cold sweats, diarrhea, vomiting, muscle pain, body cramps, and insomnia.

 It took a few days to feel better coming off that junk, but in the end all the feeling of nasea, dizziness, restless leg, itchy skin and general malaise went away. Once it did I had the realization that I was pain free.

After getting my system garbage free I started physiotherapy. I'm not doing alot, and it's not really intense, but it is very helpful. The fine folks at Beamsville Physiotherapy are teaching me the techniques and exercises to help regain core strength so that I can return to work. Another thing that they are helping me with is stretching out my hamstring. All the years of the nerve pain in my leg had the hamstring tightened up to protect the nerve. As my nerves repaired themselves I was able to use the stretches that they taught me to lengthen my hamstring and get rid of the constant sensation that it was about to ball up and cramp at any moment.

So I have come a long way very quickly. I am really hoping that I do not regress at all as some people do with this surgery. I would love for nothing more that being able to resume a normal life, something I have not been capable of for at least 10 years. Thankfully Christie is so supportive, something else I haven't had for at least 10 years. Her understanding, caring and helpfulness is getting me through this.

Either way I am done with this hodge podge mess of an update and will return to update again at some point in the future, probably after I return to work or make some other major step in recovery.

TWO WEEKS!!!

It's been two weeks today! I can't believe that two weeks have gone by already. There are some substantial differences in how I feel, which is great. I certainly hope that I am not cursing myself by saying so, but recovery seems to be going fairly smooth. :)

Day 11 Update

Well it's been a few days and progress has been made so I thought I would share. I guess if you were watching me you probably wouldn't notice the progress so much, but is happening. I notice differences in the pain, such as when I wake up in the morning. At first the pain would wake me quite early in the morning like 4am. Now it seems like it doesn't wake me until closer to 6. The other difference is that the morning pain is more tolerable, it is still quite severe but tolerable.

Another difference is the pain in movement. The simple things like getting up off of a chair is less painful. Who would have thought that the simple things could hurt so much? Either way the intensity  and frequency of pain is lessening when it comes to the small things like that.

Unfortunately my doctor refuses to lower the strength of my pain meds because he thinks that I am not ready for it and that I will end up suffering and taking longer to heal. Apparently I will heal better and faster with less pain. I think it makes sense because I need to be up and moving to stimulate healing and I won't do that if I am in misery.

Yesterday was day 10 and I had an appointment with the surgeon. He was quite happy with the outcome of the surgery and the progress being made. I got to see the xrays of my spine post surgery and managed to take a few photos of them. All in all it seems as though things are moving very well. The surgeons advice to me was to live my life, do what my body will let me, stop when it protests and reach a little further every so often.