I wrote a way-too-long post about my back surgery (below). It is not that I think that my story is particularly important or that anyone is really interested in this level of detail, but I want the blog to be a record of our lives and for the majority of the past week I have been stuck at home in a narcotic-induced haze. We also had a power outage, during which I entertained myself with blog-post-writing on my laptop’s back-up battery. So if you are not interested (and it will not hurt my feelings in the least! There will be no pop-quizzes on this material!), just check out the pictures and skip the the second-to-last paragraph, which is the most important, and interesting, I believe.
Written Saturday, September 3:
So today was the first day of college football. Go Vols! Brent and I ordered pizza & watched ESPN the entire day, as usual (well, he watched and I napped, read, & did other things occasionally). It is amazing that last week at this time, I was in the emergency room. This week last time, I hadn’t been hospitalized since my appendectomy in 1997. This time last week, I was in so.much.pain.
Written Sunday, September 4:
So the story goes:
(Note, this is loooong!)
In 2005 I began having occasional back pain & stiffness, mostly after exercising or after sitting for long periods of time (car rides & during class). I went to a few different doctors whenever the problem would come up, and would usually be diagnosed with at urinary tract infection or something similar, but I did have bloodwork, an x-ray, etc, a few different times and everything looked okay. I was also running a lot during this time, so I thought maybe that explained some of it. In 2008 I was still having problems and was referred by my primary care MD to a spine specialist. After several tests & an MRI, I was diagnosed with inflammation in the right sacroiliac (SI) joint, a joint in the pelvis (picture from foundationstrength.com).
It is actually very common and not a serious condition. At the time, I got an steroid injection in the joint & underwent several weeks of physical therapy. It completely eliminated the symptoms.
This April, after the storm that hit Fairmont Drive (15th) & the 27th tornado, I ended up doing a lot of moving, yardwork, lifting, bending, etc. I was also doing Zumba regularly. Soon my back pain came back, but I put off going to the doctor because I didn’t want to get another injection in my back (I’m a big baby about things that I know in advance will hurt.) and didn’t want the “inconvenience” of physical therapy. I just decided to do stretches at home and try to lose weight and hope the pain would resolve on its own.
Throughout the summer, my back continued to get worse. Little by little, I was making modifications to my daily activities. For example, some days I had difficulty putting my pants and shoes on. I stopped untying my tennis shoes so I could just slip them on. I began pulling myself out of bed with the bedpost. I would do the “modified” Zumba moves for people with bad knees & backs. I began riding the elevator at work all the time, even for only two floors. I basically stopped cooking & baking because it hurt to stand on the kitchen tile for that long. When walking in the morning, I would avoid all hills. I became more and more sedentary and continued to put off going to the doctor.
Finally, Brent told me very firmly that he wanted me to go to the doctor. We were planning a vacation to Gulf Shores & New Orleans and wanted to take our bikes and do some tours and rides up and down the coast like last time. Around that time, my back had really flared up. I took ibuprofen and it didn’t work at all. So I picked up the phone and called to make an appointment with the spine specialist. I got in the very next day.
The morning of my appointment, my back was hurting so bad that I could not put my shoes and socks on. That morning was the worst back pain I had ever had. I wore flip-flops to the doctor’s office because I couldn’t put my regular shoes on. After meeting with the doctor, we decided to do another injection, scheduled for the very next morning. I was so relieved and proud of myself! I thought I was finally on the way to feeling better.
I got the injection on Thursday morning and took the rest of the day off work. On Friday, the day after my injection, the back was already feeling better, even though the steroids don’t usually begin to work for at least 48 hours. Brent brought a stray dog home from Zaxby’s & I ran and played in the backyard with him for awhile. I also cleaned out my closet and moved several garbage bags and plastic tubs packed full of clothes that I wanted to donate. I was feeling great!
The next morning, Saturday, I woke up at 4 a.m. with an aching back. I got up, took some pain medication, and tried to go back to sleep. I couldn’t get comfortable and I couldn’t go back to sleep. I got up and plugged up the heating pad. At this point, my back hurt pretty bad, but I thought I must have just slept on it funny or pulled something the night before. Throughout the morning, my back continued to hurt and continued to get worse. It hurt to walk, to stand, and to sit and it would not go away, no matter how much medication, heat, or cold I applied. I got back in the bed with a wedge pillow propped under my knees, searching the internet for answers. I was miserable. I called the on-call doctor, who told me that as long as the injection site didn’t look infected (it didn’t), I should just keep on doing what I was doing and come back to the office on Monday morning.
Written Monday, September 5:
Unfortunately, the pain kept getting worse and worse. I couldn’t stand or walk on my leg for any time without unbearable pain. The pain medication wasn’t cutting it and the heat & ice weren’t doing anything. I laid in the back bedroom and cried and cried while Brent frantically paced around trying to make me feel better. Finally, at about 5 pm, I broke down and decided to go to the emergency room. I just could not imagine making it through the night with the pain.
At the emergency room, I got checked in relatively quickly. I had to wait a little bit, but I didn’t have to wait in the waiting room. It was obvious that I was miserable because I was squalling my eyes out. The worst part was having to sit in a chair to wait. In a little while I got a room and an IV and was given a dose of IV morphine. I felt the drug go in but…nothing. No relief. At this point (when morphine wouldn’t touch the pain) I got really scared that this was something serious. Soon after, they gave me a different, more potent, drug, which definitely took the edge off & made me sleepy. I had blood work & an MRI. My MRI showed that I had a very large herniated disc. At this time, I got another dose of pain medication and the ER gave me a new prescription for some strong pain medication, send me home, and told me to follow up with the spine specialist on Monday.
Sunday was actually very similar to Saturday, but fortunately the medication made me so sleepy that I was able to sleep a little bit. I could barely walk. Brent called my boss, explained the situation, & explained that I would not be able to work the next day. Halfway through the day, the stronger pain pills were no longer working. It was a long night & I barely slept.
Monday morning I was able to get in to the spine specialist immediately, which was good, because the pain was at a level 10 of 10. I actually cannot imagine being in worse pain than I was in this morning. I was taken straight back to a room and allowed to lay down on the table because it hurt so bad to sit up. My doctor & the nurse practitioner looked at the MRI that had been taken at the emergency room & said that I would need surgery. Then they called the neurosurgeon group and asked them to pull the MRI up at their office and look at it…before I knew it, I had been admitted to the hospital with orders for a PCA pump (IV pain medication pump where the patient pushes a button to get a dose), scheduled for surgery the very next morning. The PCA was so wonderful that I wanted to cry from sheer relief.
All I can say about my surgery & stay in the hospital is this:
- The nurses were FANTASTIC.
- The surgeon was FANTASTIC.
- Brent was at his peak performance as perfect husband.
- Downsides: catheters, bedpans, hospital gowns, SCDs
- The care was so good that on several accounts I found myself thinking: I am so proud to say that I work here!
So now, I am all laid up at home, kind of bored, but actually enjoying mandatory laziness, considering the circumstances, of course. More than anything else, this whole experience has made me realize how fortunate and blessed I am (we are). There were thousands of ways that this story may have had a much worse outcome. The surgeon said that my herniated disk was very large & displaced and was pinching some very vital nerves against a bone…nerves that do not appear to have suffered any permanent damage, but would have led to lots of difficulty if they had.
Among other things, I am so grateful for my access to top notch specialists & facilities. I can’t believe I was seen so quickly and scheduled for surgery so quickly. I am grateful for health insurance & for a job that provides benefits like PTO & FMLA so that I can have enough time to fully recover without worrying about losing my job or not getting a paycheck. I am grateful that Brent was able to take time off to be right with me the entire time. I am grateful that this happened while I was not pregnant (!) and before we had any children. Basically, this is something that you don’t want to happen, but if I had somehow known in advance that it would happened, our circumstances were ideal & the timing was perfect.
But the primary thing that I have been grateful for throughout this whole mess is my number one nurse, Brent. I will never be able to repay him for everything he has done & everything he continues to do for me. He has gone above and beyond repeatedly….simple tasks like helping me out of bed and in the shower to buying me a new recliner & my favorite groceries, to watching numerous movies with me (11 in the first week), to making sure I am walking enough each day, etc, etc. He has picked up everything I have dropped, brought me every meal, and helps me put on my clothes every day. He even shaved my legs the night before surgery because they were bothering me. I seriously don’t know how some one could heal from back surgery without another person around to take care of them. I have needed Brent & he has taken care of me and has not let me down -- not even a little bit, not even once. And just through the indignity of being hospitalized (see bedpans, catheters, etc, above) and feeling ugly/gross and hobbling around and not washing my hair for over a week (over a week, yes, over a week!) he has never treated me like he was frustrated with me or disgusted with me or anything less that the way he always treats me. Husband of the year, husband of the decade, husband of my lifetime. Some one like me needs some one like him. And I am so grateful for him.
(These items have NEVER coexisted in our home at the same time.)
So, this post was way, waaay too long and if you read the whole thing, thanks. If not, I totally understand. 
doctor…my spine is way too precious to gamble with.
THE END
(because it felt awkward to just end it with the last sentence)
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