NO MORE KNUCKLE DRAGGING

I'm Baaack! First of all, a big thank you to all of you for your good wishes before I went into the hospital spinal fusion. The picture at the left shows the outer manifestation of the surgery. There are 26 staples holding me together here. The vertical marks you can see are from the corset that takes the place of a cast to hold everything in place. The scar itself is about 8 inches long. Guess my bikini days are gone. (Stop laughing Lin.)

Before I went into surgery, I told the surgical team that my wife wanted them to add 2 inches. Great roars of laughter! No! No! to my height you clowns. I remember them starting the anesthetic and then waking up in the post-op ward.

As it turned out, the surgeon only had to fuse the Sacrum to the L5 vertebra. He did have to do a lot of cleaning out of scar tissue from injuries I had gotten over the years. In fact he said for someone who had never had back surgery, I had a LOT of scar tissue. He figured he got all of it anyway.

The pain that was and is there now is from the surgery. The pain that I was experiencing before the surgery, as near as I can tell , is gone. Each day I have less and less. Still hurts to cough.

Wednesday June 6, was the day of surgery. Thursday, bright and early, they have you out of bed and walking. This is a little scary at first. For about 3 steps when you realize you can stand upright and move no problem for the first time in a year. By the afternoon, I could go around the ward twice.To get out of bed is an art form. You must raise you knees up and then roll to the side like a log. As your legs go off the bed you must push up into a sitting position all without bending or twisting your back. To get back in, you reverse the process. The worst part is trying to get straight in bed, You must slide across the bed on your back. This is painful as you are sliding on our new scar.
This is also one of the best days as they take out the catheter. What an instrument of torture that is. And when you first pee with it out, be prepared. Burn


Most hospitals all seem to be the same. They want you mobile, peeing and passing gas as soon as possible. And the food is not something I would feed to my dogs. Disgusting!Some of it was so dry that even with a mouthful of water , I was unable to swallow what passed for meat.

Thursday was a busy day. Occupational Therapy- learning how to put putting on corset, going up stairs, getting in and out of vehicle, dressing, showering, using the toilet. X-ray-making sure everything is still where it is supposed to be. Walking- you cannot sit for more than 30 minutes without going for a walk.

The drainage tube came out and they took me off the morphine on Thursday. On to the Tylenol 4 or Percocet as needed.

Friday Morning: 7:00 A.M. Surgeon comes in and says (music to my ears)-" you can go home as soon as occupational therapy passes you, Home on Friday afternoon
Now it is just a matter of healing and building my strength back up. Was it worth it. YOU BET! My knuckles no longer drag on the ground. Anybody with any questions, please feel free to ask

And again to Lin, Bruno, Scott, Babzy ,Catmoves- Thanks again for your good wishes