My Back

In 7th and 8th grade I was always the first one up in the morning so I got to put the dog out.  One cold, dark winter morning I woke up to snow.  Our yard wasn't fenced, so we had a long tie out for Brian.  It was buried somewhere under the snow, and I really didn't feel like fishing it out.  I decided to take a chance that it was so cold and miserable he'd go out, potty, and come right back in.  I should mention Brian was a beagle. And beagles are runners.  I really should have known better.  Door open, dog out, dog takes off.  Jenni runs out on to patio to holler at the dog.

What I missed on my original inspection of the snow was the layer of ice underneath.  While ice is actually more common here in Texas than snow, in Kansas City and Leavenworth snow was generally snow.  In any case, I found myself flat on my back looking up at the sky.  It was remarkably clear and the stars were twinkling.  To this day I remember what I was wearing.  My mom had this nightgown pattern than we used multiple times as we got taller and they wore out.  This particular iteration was white flannel with little purple rosebuds.  It gathered and tied at the neck, had elastic at the wrists, and went all the way to the ground (or did when it was first made).  Serious grandma nightwear, but boy was it warm and comfortable.

I have no memory of how I got the dog back.  What I remember is that I hurt both my tailbone and my neck.  Had to sleep in a collar for a few days, and couldn't do anything like crunches in PE for weeks that required me to lie on the wood floor.  The whole point of the story is that this may or may not be what precipitated my back problems.  I didn't really start having issues until my early twenties, and this is the only thing I've been able to come up with.

I herniated the L5/S1 disk in 2004.  Or rather, that disk got to the point where it needed intervention in 2004.  I'm not entirely sure when the initial injury took place.  It might have been a year earlier.  That one was different than this one.  I got gradually worse, then all of a sudden took a terrible turn for the worse where I couldn't sit, stand, lie, sleep, anything for a couple of days.  Then the pain completely went away, but so did most of the feeling in my left leg.  Therapy and injections went out the window and I was scheduled for surgery.  The doc at the time said when you have pain, you can usually tell as soon as you wake up that things are better.  But with the loss of feeling, it sometimes takes time to come back.  Recovery was tough, especially since M&M were so little.  It was a full six months before I could stand on my left foot and push up on my toes.  And to this day I can trace a narrow path down my leg where there's no feeling.

Since then I've been very good about keeping up my strength exercises.  They told me they removed over half the disk, and that I could need more surgery or fusion in the future.  It was in my best interest to keep my back as healthy as I could.

Even back then I knew that the disk above showed degeneration as well, and this spring it finally reared its ugly head.  This was new and different back pain, not the kind I was used to coming and going.  The chiropractor tried several things, and I just kept getting worse, so off I went for an MRI.  I thought it was the old bad disk finally needing attention again.  But no, it was the L4/L5 disk that had herniated, trying to keep up with the Joneses I guess.

This time I had more classic symptoms, pain all the way down the leg.  Luckily, lying on my left side alleviated it, so I could get some relief.  I just couldn't get much done.  I'd say from late April until surgery yesterday, I spent more time in bed than out of it.  Steroid injections did me no good, and at that point, the surgery I had originally dreaded became welcome.  I wanted my life back.

Getting to the point of surgery was a bit of an adventure.  They send you to your primary care doc for tests and clearance ahead of time.  I did that Monday.  Tuesday afternoon I get a phone call from the nurse that one of the vials didn't have enough blood in it to run the required test.  Sigh.  Drop everything and drive to Garland again.  Driving hurts.  And I had the car with the sucky gas mileage.  And I had to take toll roads.  Cost me an hour and $8.  On the plus side, I think I was in the facility all of 3 minutes.  They knew they had screwed up and did their best.

Then Wednesday about 2PM I get a call from the surgeon's office that they haven't received all the results and clearance from my PCP.  Aack!  Mild panic attack.  Called the PCP who said they'd already sent it but would send again.  Surgeon's office called slightly after that to tell me it all came through.  Phew.  Crisis averted.  I was ready for this surgery and did NOT want to delay over something stupid like that.

I'd only been taking Advil for pain and had to quit that in advance of surgery.  My backup plan has been a nice glass of wine, but I had to give that up 72 hours prior to surgery too.  So the last few days were not fun.  Especially with two drives out to Garland.  But we got there.

The thing I found most surprising at the hospital was how shocked everybody was that I had actually read all of my instructions and followed them.  Although after reading this the day before, maybe I shouldn't have been.

When they took us back and headed to a plain room, I spotted the pediatric ones and jokingly said, "What?  I don't get monkeys?"  So the nurse changed directions and I got the fishy room.  I then got questioned and poked and prodded for a while and hooked up to all sorts of stuff before heading back to surgery at 8:30.  The anesthesiologist had a trick I hadn't seen before.  He had me hold the oxygen mask to my face and said I'd feel a tingle in the IV.  I guess they know you're out when you drop the mask.

Dave said they called him back at 9:15 to discuss surgery, so they were pretty close to on target when they told me the procedure only takes 30 minutes.  The doctor said the disk they did surgery on today is probably 65-70% gone, and the old problem child is 80% gone.  Considering the fact that I'm only 43 (at last for another two days) I will most likely need those disks fused sometime during my life.

I woke up at 10:05 feeling pretty darn good.  Pain in the leg was completely gone.  Surgery pain was there, but that I can deal with; it gets better!  The nurse and I were chatting away about board games.  Every once in a while she'd ask how the pain was and I'd tell her no different and she'd give me more meds.  At one point they called Dave and said another 15-20 minutes before I'd be back to the other area to get ready to go home.

After several attempts at the first medicine weren't making a dent in things, she switched to something else.  I don't even know what it was.  It worked great.  Pain went away, but boy was I woozy and dizzy.  I felt completely drunk.  They brought me some apple juice.  I took two sips and almost tossed my cookies.  We switched to ice chips.  Ate one and almost tossed them again.  Whatever that medicine was, it made me extremely nauseous.  So much for 15-20 minutes.  Now they started hitting my IV with anti-nausea drugs.  (Funny aside, in trying to type IV, the "R" popped onto the end involuntarily.  Talk about muscle memory.)

So now, two hours later I've slept off the worst of it and we decide to try to get me home.  I'd much rather sleep it off in my own bed.  Wheel me back to the outpatient area (and I got the monkey room this time!), took my vitals, reviewed my discharge instructions (again, they were shocked I already knew them all), and off we went.  It was pretty touchy.  I was afraid I was going to be sick all the way home.  We were home at 2PM and I went straight to bed while Dave went to the pharmacy.

After a couple of hours, I was feeling good enough to get up and move around, which is extremely important.  The worst thing you can do is be still and lie around all day.  The rest of the day was getting up and moving, sitting in the living room a while, then going back to lie down.  I kept expecting to get hungry, but it was quite a while before the nausea was really under control.  At 8PM I finally managed to drink a ginger ale.  I followed that up with 8 tiny pretzels.  That was it for the day.

I made the decision to get up and walk every couple of hours last night, and I think it's one of the best ideas I've ever had.  Just doing a few laps around the downstairs kept me loose.  This morning I'm already lengthening the time between pain pills.  I am definitely on the road to recovery.

I thank you all for your prayers and kind words through this.  Couldn't have done it without them.