Scoliosis Journey - Week 11 and Counting

My first real outing from my house after surgery was for my youngest brother's 18th birthday party. Almost exactly one month after my surgery date. Kevin had to wash and style my very difficult curly hair, and my mom lives an hour away in Hudson. It was really nice to socialize and see my family and friends though. We could only stay about and hour and fifteen minutes and then we had to go home because I was in so much pain.

I feel very old that my youngest brother, who's diaper I changed and fed bottles to, actually turned 18 and is graduating high school this year. This is why I came back from Tennessee. I missed Adam's high school graduation and it's something I can never get back. Also, I wouldn't have met Kevin or gotten my amazing job and found Dr. Moreno. Everything happens for a reason.

Everything in my life has brought me exactly to this point. I overdid it this week and am now laid up in bed on my physical therapist's orders. Rotating ice and heat and using my tens unit for the first time. Not the ice but the tens unit and the heat. It's hard for me to remember to use the Spinal Stim/bone graft stimulator. I am supposed to wear it every day, four hours for an entire year from the date of my surgery.

That's the square blue thing. It's uncomfortable. It's a hard plastic material with a soft fabric around it and is only very slightly bendable. I have to wear it at least an hour at a time. When the plastic digs into my upper and lower back, it pushes on the inserted instrumentation and it gets swollen and builds fluid (it seems to like to do that) and starts to get painful. The FDA approved clinical research shows that 92% of fusion patients that use the Spinal Stim had a successful fusion without needing additional surgery or adjustments compared to only 68% without the device. And of the patients with unsuccessful fusions, if they used a Spinal Stim over 80% of those patients ended up with a successful fusion without ever requiring surgery. So I wear it probably at least 5 days a week, and whenever I can remember.

For now, I have to lay in bed and allow myself to relax and heal.Vacuuming, laundry, cleaning the bathroom, and going out to eat and driving are things I should not be doing. They are only to my detriment and slowing my healing progress and setting me back. I never said I wasn't unbelievably stubborn. I just have to be patient and allow my muscles to grow back and hope that most of my nerves wake back up. Dr. Moreno said I won't ever regain 100% of my feeling to touch in my back, but that's not a very big deal. My scar looks amazing and the metal is all holding well and appears to be fusing as it should be.

I saw a neck x-ray of another patient in his office that had a fusion all the way up into their neck and it made me very thankful that wasn't me. It could always be worse. I am thankful he was able to save my Cervical spine and the last disc in my lumbar spine. Kevin keeps telling me to focus on the positive and think about how far I have come and what's behind me. That's the positive influence I need and love.

My thought for today's blog, "Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash." - General S. Patton

Long Recovery Is A Hard Road

I have reached week 11 of my recovery post-op from my 13 disc spinal reconstruction/fusion. That is almost 3 months. 3 months seems like a very long time. It has not gone by quickly. While I am working very hard at staying positive and overall have been really strong through the entire process, I am still human.

A long term recovery is a long and tough mountain to climb. This is the most difficult thing I have ever done. I have been, basically, trapped in my bedroom for the better part of 3 months and it's starting to get to me. I get up and do a slew of things I'm not supposed to like vacuum, dishes, laundry, cleaning the bathroom, walking/sitting/standing longer than 15 minutes. All of these things are causing me to slow my own healing process. Sitting still in your bed other than using the restroom and doing physical therapy is painfully difficult.

I go to the grocery store and unless we take my walker or are only getting literally one or two items I have to use one of the motorized wheelchairs. What's very aggravating is lazy overweight people use them rather than walking, which is what they need most, and destroy the back support! So I have to sit upright and after being in the store an hour plus my back is swollen full of fluid and killing me. Then, back to the bedroom.

So I decided to change my surroundings a little and pamper myself through some online shopping of sundresses and bedding. I decided that I needed and entirely new bed set because that is my main focal point the majority of each day. Currently we have a light blue sea shell design comforter on our king size bed, that Kevin picked out, and I have had enough of looking at it lol. So I ordered a lavender comforter to calm my surroundings with only very small embroidering on it and smoky blue and purple sheets and pillow cases. What a difference sheets can make.

I am not the type of person to lay in bed all day long. Don't get me wrong, I love a lazy weekend or rainy day in the normal busy hustle and bustle of life...but this is something completely different. The "stay-cation" has turned into something occasionally resembling I don't know house arrest or something and is beyond old!

Luckily, I have an amazing boyfriend who devotes a lot of his time to taking care of me and spending time with me every day somehow so I have relief. It almost makes me cry when I think about how lucky I am to have that. We have a friend that was in a motorcycle accident and is very lucky to be alive and was in a rehabilitation center for months, close to a year, and that would have been me! Kevin has basically saved my life twice now. We played life which was great. I haven't had the dexterity to work on any of my jewelry yet, but I think I am going to try soon. I can't wait to resume my normal activities. I want to clean and cook and work out and lounge on the couch go out with friends, dance, anything. I am an invalid trapped in my body, bed, and home. And it's the most difficult thing I've ever done.

Working is very difficult. It is still difficult to manage the pain, let alone my business. I have to speak very slowly and work at a snail's pace compared to how I would normally perform. Accounting is challenging to say the least. The pain is all consuming and frustrating and it is hard to hide sometimes. Sometimes I just can't answer the phone. But all in all I am doing a pretty darn good job of managing things, if I do say so myself. And I do.

All in all I look great. I am healing very well and my overall flexibility is very good for what I had done, according to my physical therapist. She is amazing. I may upload my rehab exercises just to show examples of what I am doing during my recovery. I still have a long path ahead of me, but I have come a long way.

I feel how much stronger I am, I haven't lost weight, my stomach, thigh, and arm muscles are not deteriorating the way most do and I feared they would. I didn't have any surgical complications. I had many other complications in the hospital, but in the grand scheme of things they were miniscule compared to what I went through. Now I have an almost perfectly straight spine without a hip that pops in and out of place, degenerative discs, bulging discs, arthritis, and pinched nerves that made me double over in pain out of nowhere, etc etc. I am extremely lucky to have a family that loves and checks on me constantly and an amazing boyfriend, and a sweet little boy, that help me do most of everything. Even shaving my legs and styling my hair. How many men can do that for their women?

In a couple months I will be doing markedly better, as I am now compared to the night I woke up from surgery. I think about what I felt like, and how I am improving every day, and hold onto that. The new and improved future and an entirely different outlook on life.This was something I had put off for almost 15 years. It simply couldn't wait any longer, and there was no better surgeon to perform this operation on me. As depressing, slow, and frustrating as this recovery process is, I know that when all is said and done I will be thrilled to have gotten this out of the way and be 80-90% pain free and cosmetically look different as well. No more altering clothes and tops because of my Scoliotic body. I consider myself very lucky that I am as far along as I am and that I didn't have any more severe complications and am on a STRAIGHT road to recovery and being done with Scoliosis pain. And I can't even see the scar on my back, so it's like it doesn't even exist.

Do the things you do because you choose to do them for your own personal growth and success, not so you will be seen in a certain light by others. `

Always With Karma,

Amanda