Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Surgery

For those of you who know me you also know that I have suffered from back pain for many a year. Well THAT is all going to be in the past. Jan. 19 I will have a "Lumbar four-five laminectomy & fusion, internal fixation, iliac crest bone graft". Now I thought that sounded kind of scary until my friend Jackie asks "What are they removing?" "Removing" I say, "they aren't taking anything out they are just fixing it." She laughed and informed me that any time you have anything with the ending in ectomy it means they are removing something! Ok, I'm an idiot I just thought it was a bone graft over a couple of screws. I don't think they are removing to much just the broken parts, however I am excited to see if this helps. The Dr. gave me a choice to have MOST of my pain gone or I could just go home and live with the pain. Now I don't know about you but that sounded pretty good - I have a 90% chance of the surgery working and even a little higher since I am not a smoker soooooooooooo here I go!. Just say a little prayer for me ok? Also you might add in your prayers that while under anethisa I don't ask my dr. something stupid like "What kind of nationallity are you?" His name is Rand Schleusener!! My 2009 bucket list has now included painting the living room, bedroom, kitchen (new theme too), mudding the hallway, tearing out the old bedroom downstairs, setting up my cottage garden studio, revamping the yard.........can't wait for a healthy back!!

7 comments:

Jess -n- Jason -n- Crew said...

Deb -- Such relief!! Back surgery for me was totally the answer to my prayers, and I've been great since! I hope you have a similar result! We will be praying for you!!

beckyw said...

YaY Debbie! We are all praying for ya! It will be better.....

Rudloff5 said...

Wow, you are in our prayers for this to go smoothly and I hope you have great results!! I totally know what back pain feels like and it can make your life so miserable. We wish you the best and will be thinking of you. Let me know if you need anything during recovery, as I am only 100 feet away!

˙·٠♥PhAeDrA♥٠·˙ said...

yay...i'm sooooo happy for you!! you will be in my prayers!! i hope me dropping some weight will help my back pain....

The Clamors said...

You Know I'm Here For Ya!

SusanD said...

Hey Deb, A friend of mine went thru a similar surgery this past fall. It's amazing how much better she is and you will be too. Blessings, Susan

Anonymous said...

Hi Deb! Good luck with your surgery. We'll be thinking about you. Just in case you were wondering, Jackie is right. Each vertebra encircles your spinal cord. The lamina is the part of the vertebra that forms the "roof" if you were lying on your stomach and the surgeon is looking at your back. I'm assuming they think your pain is caused by something being compressed (nerve, spinal cord, etc). They will take out that bone on both of those lower back vertebrae to relieve the compression. Then they will use that graft from your pelvis to fuse the spine back together (basically for stability). I have very little interest in orthopedics, so I'm not that familiar with the procedure, but that's the dumbed-down version as I understand it! You probably knew all that already, but I just can't lose the teacher instinct. Good luck!

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