I had my one month follow-up appointment with my neurosurgeon on Tuesday - got told again: “gold star for recovery” so far! They are very happy with my progress, and gave me clearance to start physical therapy, allowed to take baths/start walking in pools, increasing weight I can lift, doing a bit more, and increasing amount of time sitting. Still no dog-walking, vacuuming, dishes, lawn-mowing, or most laundry for another month or two though - too much strain when being pulled, turning, and bending over. I am so far 100% happy that I went through with the surgery - I am so much better off than I was with the back and leg pain from the get-go.
So all week, I have been working on the amount of time I can sit at once at a chair, while just getting up to walk around every 15 minutes or so, but avoiding major laying-down sessions (which always relieves the pain around the incision spot).
I’ve been able to improve quite a bit, so following doctor’s suggestion, I am going to start going into office today, finally. I’ve been working at home full-time, but for next week or so, I am going to switch to half-days in office, half-days at home, with physical therapy 2x a week as well. That way, I continue to push towards getting back to “normal” (which may take 3 months or so to fully feel), can continue to be productive at work, yet still provide my back some down time by taking advantage of the comforts of working from home, while at the same time having face-time to work with my team and others. My body will tell me when it’s ready for full-time days. Hopefully soon, but the doc did caution me to take it slow and steady.
I am excited to get back - it’s been a long path of pain and recovery!
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As those of you following my Facebook status updates know, surgery went very well (the main back/leg pain is gone - albeit with a new back pain from the surgery itself), and I am back from the hospital, and well on the path to recovery (walking a little, sitting a small bit, resting a ton). I’ll write more later when it is more comfortable to be on a computer, but just wanted to pass along the latest updates in case I haven’t had a chance to talk to you in person.
And for everyone who has passed along good wishes - thanks! it means a lot to me to hear from everyone :)
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Back in 1997, as I left school for the summer, I ended up with a pretty acute case of mono, which forced me to have a couple of stints in the hospital. During the first case, the Detroit Red Wings won their first Stanley Cup since 1995 - I remember being extremely jealous of all of my friends who were out partying that night while I was hooked up to an IV.
Fast forward to 2008 - the Detroit Red Wings just won their 11th Stanley Cup! Which of course means I have a medical issue to deal with - my leg pain and back pain I have been discussing just isn’t getting better, and we need to ensure there’s no long term nerve damage in my foot or ankle from the nerve irritation. So after a couple doctor’s appointments (neurosurgeon and orthopedist) yesterday to get opinions, and a realization that any more doctors were not going to give us a new non-surgical direction to try, we scheduled myself for a lumbar microdiscectomy on Wednesday, June 11th (time to be determined the day before), at Swedish Medical Center’s Neurological Science Center with the neurosurgeon (Dr. Peter Nora), to hopefully remove this pain from my back (literally!)
You can either have a neurosurgeon or an orthopedist do this; we feel more comfortable with the neurosurgeon, both personally, and professionally. As I’ve told people: “If someone is operating anywhere near my nerves, I’d rather it be someone who works on the brain, not the hand!” That said, this is reportedly, and I’ve done a bunch of research along with the doctor’s words, a fairly common, routine procedure - it is not the kind of “back surgery” you hear people so often discussing having lifetimes of issues, etc… Obviously, there’s no guarantees, but isn’t a metal rod implant, or a fusion, or anything overly scary - it takes about a half hour under the knife, and if I wanted, I could likely head home that day to start recovery. We are planning on having me stay the night for one night, just as a precaution, which the doctor recommended in any case.
Notes, including videos, descriptions, guides:
- Swedish Medical Center’s Spine Surgery Guide: http://www.swedish.org/body.cfm?id=547
- Should be as they describe, other than we’ll only be there one night, not 4, as the procedures they are discussing are more intensive than I need.
- Good article describing the procedure: http://www.spine-health.com/treatment/back-surgery/microdiscectomy-microdecompression-spine-surgery
- Another good article on the procedure: http://www.esurgeon.com/scripts/content/treatmentoptions/back-lumbarmicrodiscectomy.html?doctor=nora
- Video of the procedure: http://www.esurgeon.com/scripts/content/playmovie.html?filename=discmicro&returnpath=treatmentoption/back-lumbarmicrodiscectomy.html&doctorname=Peter%20C%20Nora,%20MD&doctor=nora&page=back
Looking forward to getting healthy soon!