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jennlkOK, now that I'm home and on the road to recovery, let me tell you the story of my day in surgery.
We got there precisely on time, checking in at 9am for a scheduled 11am OR. Got into Prep by 9:30. About 10:45, the anesthesiologist came by and said that the doc was running late, and I'd probably get into OR about 12:30. So J went off to get something to do while waiting, and to see how DB was doing with GrammaT. I took a nap, since they already had me hooked up to an IV. About 12:15 or so, the doc showed up. Seems that the previous surgery took just as long as expected -- it's just that he started 90 minutes late. Says that this surgery should take about 4 hours, with maybe an extra 30 minutes if he needs to cage L4-L5. Finally, they roll me off to OR about 1:15 or so. The next thing *I* know, it's 7:30pm, SR is looking very worried, and J is not exactly at-ease, either. I say Hi to both of them, then it's 9:15pm and I'm finally checked in to my hospital room.
The doc tells me that he went after the L5-S1 joint first, cleaning out the junk that had restricted the canal to about 40% of its original size. He then spent about an hour trying to straighten out L5-S1, but finally gave up as the joint had begun to fuse and he wasn't able to break it. So he straightened it out as much as he could and screwed a cage in, putting a bone graft ground off the pelvis bone in to ensure bone growth. Then he moved up to L4-L5, which hadn't looked so bad on the MRI and XRays, but turned out to need both cleaning out and a cage. He says that L4-L5 was in bad enough shape that it would have warranted decompression/fusion all by itself, never mind L5-S1 being in far worse shape. They'd put two units of blood into me during the decompression (lots of live stuff getting cut up and removed), and I was on a morphine drip.
My mother had started calling the hospital about 5 pm, wanting to know what room I was in. They had to keep telling her "we don't know, she's not checked in yet". The minister had gone and picked up SR from band camp and brought her to the hospital, which is why she was there when I got to the recovery room.
My doc's partner tried to send me home on Saturday, but the nurses said "not until those vital signs go up and stablise". So another unit of blood, more walks to the bathroom/showers/sitting up and eating; and they let me go on Sunday. Not that my vital signs were much better, but at least they were stable.
Next week I get the staples out, and then I take it easy for another 3-5 weeks before I start rehab. At this point, the cages are really the only thing holding my spinal column stable, so I'm spending most of my time reclining or laying flat on the futon.
We got there precisely on time, checking in at 9am for a scheduled 11am OR. Got into Prep by 9:30. About 10:45, the anesthesiologist came by and said that the doc was running late, and I'd probably get into OR about 12:30. So J went off to get something to do while waiting, and to see how DB was doing with GrammaT. I took a nap, since they already had me hooked up to an IV. About 12:15 or so, the doc showed up. Seems that the previous surgery took just as long as expected -- it's just that he started 90 minutes late. Says that this surgery should take about 4 hours, with maybe an extra 30 minutes if he needs to cage L4-L5. Finally, they roll me off to OR about 1:15 or so. The next thing *I* know, it's 7:30pm, SR is looking very worried, and J is not exactly at-ease, either. I say Hi to both of them, then it's 9:15pm and I'm finally checked in to my hospital room.
The doc tells me that he went after the L5-S1 joint first, cleaning out the junk that had restricted the canal to about 40% of its original size. He then spent about an hour trying to straighten out L5-S1, but finally gave up as the joint had begun to fuse and he wasn't able to break it. So he straightened it out as much as he could and screwed a cage in, putting a bone graft ground off the pelvis bone in to ensure bone growth. Then he moved up to L4-L5, which hadn't looked so bad on the MRI and XRays, but turned out to need both cleaning out and a cage. He says that L4-L5 was in bad enough shape that it would have warranted decompression/fusion all by itself, never mind L5-S1 being in far worse shape. They'd put two units of blood into me during the decompression (lots of live stuff getting cut up and removed), and I was on a morphine drip.
My mother had started calling the hospital about 5 pm, wanting to know what room I was in. They had to keep telling her "we don't know, she's not checked in yet". The minister had gone and picked up SR from band camp and brought her to the hospital, which is why she was there when I got to the recovery room.
My doc's partner tried to send me home on Saturday, but the nurses said "not until those vital signs go up and stablise". So another unit of blood, more walks to the bathroom/showers/sitting up and eating; and they let me go on Sunday. Not that my vital signs were much better, but at least they were stable.
Next week I get the staples out, and then I take it easy for another 3-5 weeks before I start rehab. At this point, the cages are really the only thing holding my spinal column stable, so I'm spending most of my time reclining or laying flat on the futon.
