Surgery Again

[Samuknow]

After my last surgery things were ok for a while. I started to have pain again. It was not down my leg as before. Mostly in my back only. I figured it was a healing thing and let it be. Still taking the pain meds.

Went to the Dr. a few times and at this point he is very concerned. In the mean time I am working 60-65 hours a week and enduring a pretty high stress job. The is just making it worse.

The Doc wants me to have yet another MRI. This makes 6 in just over 2 years. I then get a call a week or so later that he "needs" to see me again.
This does not give me the warm fuzzy feeling I was looking for. I show up and he comes in with his laptop. I thought hey cool. He shows my my MRI in a manner I have never seen before. He uses the laptop to scroll up through my spine. I see the area where the last surgery was performed. Looks great other than a little scar tissue. Then we get to the disc above the one I had repaired. It is huge and bulging to the point my spinal cord is engulfed by it. I can see nothing but the disc. Also the disc I had surgery on and the one above and below are completely dark on the MRI. He said that is due to no fluid being present in the discs. That is why the new one has bulged out.

The pain has been increasing to the point that I can barely do anything without causing a great deal of pain either instantly or the next day. It is getting to the point I am hardly coping with the meds I am on. I go to the pain management Dr. at the center where my surgeon practices. He doubles my dosage. This is helping but I now am fried most of the time and I have trouble sleeping. I am still a project manager at work and I have many things to juggle. I have to take many notes so I can keep everything straight. It is a challenge to say the least.

Also over the last few months my boss has been out of work almost all the time. His wife has had cancer and ended up passing away a month or so ago. I have been having to fill in for him as well. For this reason I have not been able to schedule the surgery to got this mess taken care of. He has returned now and I finally have a surgery date.

The surgery is Aug 6 at 11:00 AM. I will go home that day just like before. I will be home for about 2 weeks. It is all the time I can be gone since no one really can keep up with all that goes on for an extended time. With my boss being gone for so long, no one else is up to speed with all of the projects and contractors I deal with on a daily basis. I will still have to answer my cell and answer email while I am home recovering.

I think that is everything. I hope that explains my absence here. I miss everyone but I just have no time right now. I am always tired due to the long hours, stress at work, dealing with the pain, and not sleeping because of the meds. Wow, that sounds a little like whining.

I will try to poke my head in more often. Maybe after surgery I can get back on track.

I appreciate your guys concern. That is why I love it here.

[PorPorMe]

Best wishes, Sam. I can only hope it all comes out well in the end.
Think on the bright side. I was watching over you in the time of the great flood wasn't I, and you didn't drown did ya? i take care of my friends. See ya.

[fantomfreq]

Sounds like a very necessary surgery, though anything that close to the major nerve centers is frightening. Here's to hoping that you come out of this one with a better back!

[robbie]

Best too you my friend. I hope you find some relef very soon.

[cloasters]

Sam, you are one tough person. There's no way I could handle the stress in your life, my hat is off to you in salute to a better man than I am. Thank goodness that your boss is or will be back to work soon, you need time of your own nearly desperately. I sincerely hope that your doctors get it right this time, really needing pain pills takes all of the "fun" out of them. Having trouble with sleeping puts a nasty icing on this cake of misery. May some relief be yours as soon as possible!

[MUff1N]

If ANYONE understands this Sam I DO!!! 8 bad discs with me and pretty much all my other joints. (No not the kind you smoke! LOL)
Stress sucks all by itself but when you are dealing with PAIN and lack of SLEEP at the same time it's really bad!!!

Yea the Vicodine & Morphine I'm taking effects my sleep too, or should I say the lack there of. I've maybe had 15 hours of sleep in the last week or so. You get really spacey after awhile.
I've woken up in the bathroom in the middle of the night standing up and didn't remember going in there...
I guess I was kinda sleep walking.

[Gizmo]

Dude, I was wondering how you were doing. Sorry to hear things are so sucky for you. Hope things start looking up soon.

[Daniel ~]

Ah Sam...you've really been through it this last few years! What a load you've had to carry.

I hope August frees you from this pain and restores your life to you.

[Samuknow]

Surgery got moved to first thing in the morning. I have to be there at 6:00 AM. I think I am more nervous this time. I know haw bad the pain is after and how stir crazy I will get. I told my wife in Feb after my first surgery that if it did not work I could not do this again. I guess time makes us forget how bad things are. That is why women have more than one baby. They forget the pain.

[Daniel ~]

Nervous? I would be terrified. I would need every once of my inner strength just to walk though that door a second time. I would need to remind myself that I do not dictate outcomes. I can only address myself to maintaining a proper stance as best I might.

I will be joining your friends and family with my prayers. Best of Luck Sam.

[PorPorMe]

.............and we gather. For you.

[Samuknow]

Off I go.

I will pop back in as soon as I can. At least just to say hi....

Thank to you all for your thoughts and prayers.

Relief is just around the bend...

[Gizmo]

Be well, be safe, and return to us soon dude!

[Daniel ~]

We all spin upon the lathe of the maker
to attain his perfect forms...

[cloasters]

Spinning on the lathe of the Maker, that's really poetic. Wish the chisels hurt a little less! We have our fingers crossed for Sam, I hope he feels genuinely better soon!

[Daniel ~]

There was once a young monk who had many very good ideas! But realizing his own limitations; rather than act personally, each morning upon rising he would tell God about any ideas he had which he felt to be especially good or useful.

As time went on and he grew older he began to realize that at least some of his ideas were being acted upon ...but in strange ways!

He had once awoken and told God how much more a monk could get done if the Mountain path were broader and he could run between villages.... Like with most of his ideas he soon forgot it in his prayers... He would leave them for consideration as it were...Then God could respond or no...

The year he asked for a better path through the mountains, he had fallen and crushed his leg. As the monk waited enduring great torment, he looked up and then shook his head and said...

"OH God! You Cloud!"

After that he had once proposed a swift horse So his bad leg wouldn't slow his service...and a rock had fallen upon him the following year leaving him hunched in his back and left him with a twisted walk as well as a limp!! He had raised his fist once more and shouted

OH GOD YOU CLOD!

He could not in his innocence understand how God had kept getting his suggestions so horribly horribly wrong!

As an old crippled he now shambles between villages so slow that everyone he had once needed to hurry to see and help now passes him by at a walk exchanging their greetings and ...when they need to ....slowing and walking beside the the twisted shuffling walking stick of a monk ...plenty of time to explain their problems. plenty of time to receive his consul before the dust settles upon the path...

When they tell him of their deepest sorrows the monk sometimes lunges up upon his walking staff to his full hight ,....which is now only an inch or two taller than when he yields to his hunchback...then twists his head sideways on his neck in a way that scares everyone... so that he can once again see upward.... looks...searches and looks upwards and shouts

"OH GOD YOU CLOD!

In his innocence he cannot understand how God keeps blowing their communication!!

As time passes and the monk's pace grows ever slower he begins to block the narrow places for faster younger people,

Rather than ask him to change anything he is use to and so perhaps hasten his departure.. they widen the mountain path into a road

It now being safe, they buy the monk a horse and cart... when the king hears of all these things he orders a bridge be built that he might send for this man of God.

Upon arriving safely at the Capitol The Monk was heard to shout

"OH GOD YOU CLOD!"










(The Monk and the phrase "OH GOD YOU CLOD!" is borrowed without permission from "The River Why?") Think of it as a not vastly different but not much the same re-telling of the story ":O}

[Samuknow]

Here is an update

I was having a severe amount of pain on Thursday. I called the Dr. and he told me to come in on Friday morning. I went in Friday and he said with the pain an swelling and the fact the pain was shooting down my left leg, he thought I had a hematoma .He now orders an stat MRI to be done all the way down town. about 30 minute drive from here I am. I had already ridden 40 minutes to see him. The MRI was terribly painful because the area around my incision was incredibly sore and lying on my back made the pain radiate down my leg and it was bad. 2o minutes later I am finally finished. I then go home, another 20 min car ride, to wait for the Dr. to call me back.

He calls me back and told me I had to the surgery center that I went to on Wednesday to have emergency surgery. Another 40 minute car ride. I have to have this blood clot removed immediately due the the dangers involve with it. SO they prep me and I am ready to go in. I see most of the nurses and staff that I met on Wednesday. I am now brought in and the anesthesiologist gives me the meds to knock me out. This is the first time I could actually feel it burn all over my body before I go out. It was a little scary for the 2 seconds before I feel asleep.

Now I am in recovery and they are giving me Demerol to help with the pain. I was starting to feel a little better. I was then told I had to stay over night for observation. That did not make me happy at all.

They send me upstairs to my room. Pretty cool actually. I had dish network and cable. I also had internet access through the TV with a keyboard. I was a little too out of it to figure it all out. My wife actually got to stay in the room with me. I am glad for that.

The Nurse and tech last night were great. The made it a little more enjoyable to be there. They had to wake me up every hour to check on me and check vitals. I had to have them help me to the restroom because I could barely walk. By this morning I was doing much better.

Then the day shift comes in and the nurse was a knot head. Very strange and did not really listen to me at all. I asked to get my IV out after all my meds were done and all she did was disconnect the tube and left the needle in my are. The tech came in later and took it out when I asked her.

The Dr. came in around 6:30. My Dr. was off this weekend so he got this Dr. up to speed. At least that is what he told me in recovery. The Dr. indicated that I should be ready to go home tomorrow. I told him that I was only supposed to be here over night for observation. He left and I never saw him again. The nurse ended up getting it all straightened out and I finally got to leave around 10:30.

I am now home and very sore. I am exhausted from being woke up all night long. I am in less pain than I was on Thursday which tells me that there are no issues. It was so bad Thursday, I did not think I could take it any longer. There is a lot of pain at the surgery point which makes since as I have had two operations in 2 days. It is pretty crappy and any contact makes me cringe.

I am not trying for a pity party here just an update on the hell that has been my life over the last few days. I will probably be away for a day or so and sitting here pretty much sucks.

See you all soon.

Sam