Surgery and Recovery (The Final Chapter, I Hope)

Recovery is really a state of mind. There are so many ebbs and tides in the process. I find myself either very depressed with the lack of progress and the abundance of pain or very excited about being able to accomplish something, even so small. I have appreciated everyone's prayers for my health and welfare. Kids at my school made me a huge card which I put up in my recovery room in the downstairs pf my house. It was constant reminder of the great relationship I have with the 300 kids that I work with every week. I love my students and wanted to be back at work to be with them.They gave me motivation. On the other hand when I couldn't I would get a 'down' feeling.
One of my students the day before my surgery asked me, 'aren't you afraid' I replied that I believe in God and I know that he was watching over me and it was his will. That night I saw a story on TV about a young girl in India who was going to have surgery the same day as me who was born with eight limbs and was going to have four of them removed. My 'litle' back surgery seemed pretty insignificant in the scheme of things. If she could go through that, mine would be a piece of cake.
Each week I would grow stronger. For example,the week before I would not be able to turn over from one side to another without grabbing the rails on the bed but now I could flip myself over without grabbing hold. That might seem insignificant, but to a recoverer it was a milestone. The first time going outside was a psychological lift. The first drive in the car was awesome. The first time I could go to the fridge by myself and retrieve food was like climbing Everest. Last Sunday I was able to go to church for the first time in seven weeks. It was a very uplifting experience for me and I was real psyched. It has made this week very special to me.
The days I drove off and went to school for a couple of hours were very important, even though on most occasions I was in great pain and fatigued afterwards. I got to feel like I was a part of the school again. Seeing colleagues and students brought joy to my heart. Don't tell my doctor,please.
On the otherhand the down times were plentiful. Falling off the couch, dropping something on the floor and not being able to retrieve it(that's why I had to get the super-dooper picker upper), watching your cat throw up all over the floor early in the morning and having to watch it all day until your wife came home- these are all very depressing to the macho, testosterone laden guy that I am. I think the biggest low was not being able to sleep in the same bed with my wife. If you are married you would know what I mean. Her very presence is always comforting to me. It was a great relief in the fifth week to move upstairs to the 'bigboy' bed . Having a numbness in my left foot is still a big setback to me since it makes it difficult to walk. Mr. cane and I are constant companions because of this. Everyone from my wife to my doctor tell me to be patient and it will heal up sometime. Of course you have read about some of my other setbacks.
So you can see where your psyche is important in the recovery stage. I will not have a full recovery for a long time. I will wait for this to happen. I will be patient. I will continue to pray daily for my health and the health of many others. As we approach this joyous season of celebrating the birth of Christ I will be very cognizant of his prescence in my life. With his help and the help of my friends, my family and my students I know that this last chapter will come to a conclusion. When? Only He knows.

Surgery and Recovery (Part Three)

Everything was going very well with my recovery except that my back was itchy and burning at night when I lay on it and during the day when brace was tightened around it. I had called the doctor's office a couple of times about it, especially since it looked a little swollen around the incision. They just told me that it was normal as along as I had no fever. Now I was taking my temperature about five times a day checking for a fever. At the end of the four weeks I had a scheduled doctor's appointment with my surgeon so when he asked me how everything was going I told him about the incision. He had me show it to him and I could tell by his expression that everything was not well. He stated that I had an infection in the incision and that I would have to start a round of antibiotics. He looked at it again and he said to go down to the other room so he could 'lance' it. Well the 'other room' is a small in house surgery where they do minor procedures. The nurse got me half undressed and then proceded to take out a lot of instruments that did not look like a whole lot of fun unless you were into sado-masoschism. The doctor came in, sat down behind me, took out some of those instruments, the sharper ones, and said that 'this might hurt'. Anytime a doctor tells you that, 'might' means that it WILL hurt. He then cut my back in three places to drain off the fluid that had built up back there. Now it REALLY hurt. There was no might about it. I told him that in the movies don't they give a man a shot of whiskey when they cut him open without anaethesia. He chuckeled, easy for him, and replied that this is South Texas so I could have some tequilla. I said , 'bring it on and quick'! No such luck! The nurse put the bandages on again and gave me some to take home so my caring wife could dress my back again each day and when I showered.
I had one other issue that had been bothering me. My left foot was still very numb by the big toe and the instep. The doctor said that that will take time for it to heal. The nerves had been stretched out so much on that sided that it takes a while to come back. Please come back soon because I walk funny with the foot like that and even stumble a bit when that toe does not want to work the way I want it to. The bikg toe, I have found really controls your ability to walk correctly. I never want to lose that toe.

Surgery and Recovery( Part Two)

Now I am home. My wife is working and during the day I lay in bed, the downstairs bedroom. She puts all my food for breakfast and lunch in a cooler in the living room since I can't lift more than five pounds and can't bend over.Refrigerators are not back friendly. I have found out after 37 years how strong my wife really is. I was the cook in the family and actually did a lot of the housework, especially after I retired from 39 years of coaching swimming a few years back. Now she has to work at her school, come home and cook and clean, prepare lessons and get me ready for the next day. On top of that she is changing my bandages, getting me showered and dried off( that was actually fun for me), making sure I have my meds etc.
After a few days I couldn't handle the pain and I called my doctor at his house and asked for more pain meds. He increased them to 3 pills every four hours and gave me a script for muscle relaxers. That helped me have better sleeps. I was getting huge full body spasms called nocturnal temors (should have been renamed to nighttime body earthquakes). They made me feel like my body was breaking in half. This made my back hurt even more.
The first week I had no visitors but people phoned me. Now I know they were only trying to be friendly and caring but it seemed that I just got back to sleep when the phone would ring. But it was always nice to hear another humans voice on the phone. The only companionship I had were our three cats and my dog, Pax. Pax for the first little while did not understand why I was home and had to lay on 'his' couch during the day. We had some standoffs over couch possession. I would tell him to get up and he would look at me like he owned the place. I'm sure if he had a middle finger he would have given it to me.
A wonderful lady from our church, Lisa, came to visit me the second week. Lisa is a caring, devoted Christian lady. Her sons play in the praise band at our church that I sing in. She is also the chairman of a committee we are on together. She brought me a book to read that I have used as a daily 'devotional'. I look forward to her weekly fellowship as we have made it a 'date' each week. She has been a godsend to me. My retired neighbor also visits me regularly as well as some other people who pop in to see me. It is good to know you have some friends who call you or visit you when you are 'down' Because of this I am now calling weekly another lady in our praise group who is homebound with breast cancer and inner ear problems. 'Pay it forward' is a good philosophy to live by.
Another source of comfort and companionship was my laptop and two very important programs on it- Skype and MSN webcam messenger. I talk to my father in law in Canada, my brother and sister in law in the Philippines, my niece in British Columbia, my wife's best friend in the Dominican Republic and my two good friends in Italy, Laurence and Lilianna.
Remember my two new friends, brace and walker. We have gotten to know each other well. At first I could not walk without walker and brace. They were my lifelines to getting from room to room- kitchen, bathroom, living room, bedroom. Brace and I will be together for the next three months. After the third week walker and I had a parting of the ways except for those mid-night bathroom stops.(thanks cathetor!)I now had to do more and more walking by myself. Boy,had my quads, my beautiful bike riding quads, gotten smaller. It was like an old man or a young toddler walking around on my own. Hands out for balance, one step at a time. Little Blake, my grandson, got around better than I did. It was about this time that I decided that the stairs had to be mastered. Walking up would tire me out so I would lay down on my own bed up there for a half hour or so before going back down. I made a little circuit of walking around the house in circles, up and down the stairs, for eventually 20 minutes at a time. I would add the weightless quad lift on the upstairs weight machine to the routine later. I had to get stronger. I longed to go outside.
Finally I got to go with my wife into Boerne to walk the main street with her. I never was so tired and sore in my life. But it motivated me to do more and to get out more often. I started walking the 400 foot road from the house to the mailbox at first holding on to my wife, then holding onto the trees and finally with the use of a cane that Lisa brought me. Her boys picked it out. The handle was in the shape of an elephant. I call it my ELLEYphant cane. I was feeling a bit better.
I was feeling so good that in the fourth week I got in my wife's car and drove the 32 miles to my school to see my students and my wonderful teaching partner, Anita. I missed my friends at school. Phone calls and emails just didn't cut it. It was agood, but tiring experience. Everything was going too good. It was time for a setback.

Surgery and Recovery(Part One)

Finally my back gave out and it was time to have surgery. Therapy, meds, shots, exercise- all had failed. The doctor looked at my MRI and said- "Looks like you are going to need surgery on that back of yours". I agreed. Now I'm not so sure that I should have.
Everybody tells me, by this time next year you won't even remember all this. I hope so because I sure am having a hard time forgetting it now.
I had to get a fusion in the lumbar area. This included putting in two cages in my vertebrae section, srewing in some plates, getting rid of the old discs, doing a bone graft and stretching out the nerves that had been compressed for so long. Sounds easy, doesn't it.
Now if you take your car in to get repaired you might leave it there for a few days and when you pick it up from the shop it runs smoothly, almost like it did when you bought it. Not so with surgery. You wake up in the hospital after your surgery, tubes in your arms, in your private areas and drains in your back. You are incoherent, your vision is blurred and faces of technicians and nurses are coming at you so rapidly that your eyes are flashing like hallucinigenic dreams. You are told that if you hurt you can push this button so the morphine in it can mask your pain. That is just the beginning.
The next few days are filled with people waking you up during the night several times to give you the necessary meds, to check on your blood pressure and heart rate and make sure that you are 'sleeping ok'. During your waking hours you are taken for walks with your two new friends, the walker and the brace. It is then that you realize that one of your legs doesn't want to work too well. It seems heavy and numb. I was sure that before I came to the hospital that it was working fine. Twenty four hours ago I could walk fine but now I feel like I should be in a ' Cacoon' movie.
Finally they let you go home after a few days in the hospital. (Truthfully, they did an excellent job preparing me for my departure.) I get to take my new aforementioned friends home with me. My wife drives me home trying to be careful in our little car, but the back hurts anyway. With each bump the pain is magnified. We get home and for the first time I have to try to hobble up the small rise to the house where two months of recovery await me. The doctor told me that the recovery time ranged from two weeks to two months. I had hoped for the two weeks but instead got the two months. I would learn what PAIN really meant!