Spinal Surgery

I'm so happy to announce that I survived spinal surgery and I'm even cutting back on the percocet a bit now!

Surgery was first thing in the morning on April 4th. It's such a relief to have it over with. There was not doubt in my mind that I was in enough pain to justify the surgery, but in the back of my mind, I was so afraid that he was going to cut me open and find that there was nothing wrong or that the disc was healing on its own. Thank God that didn't happen! The surgeon said that, once he got in there, it was much worse than he had anticipated. There was hardly any disc matter left to scrape out. Apparently my body had been reabsorbing the disc, which was causing a wider array of symptoms and pain than were noted when the problem presented itself in June of last year. The surgeon took a bone graft from the front of my pelvis on the left side and attached it to the C5 and C6 vertebrae in my neck using a metal plate and 4 screws. I'm now in a neck brace for 6 weeks to make sure that the bone graft heals and grows into the vertebrae and properly fuses them. I have xrays in another week and then again at 6 weeks post-op to make sure everything is on track. If everything looks good at 6 weeks, I can lose the neck brace and I'm good to go!

Thanks to my family and friends for being so supportive through all of this! What am I gonna blog about once my health is better?!? ;)