7 weeks out

7 weeks out from my surgery. I still spend most of my days sitting in my la-z-boy recliner. It sucks.
I am  having my second period and it increases my pain so much. Cramps and a spinal fusion are not a good combination! I want to curl into a ball and cry. But I can't. I can't even take anything for it at the moment because I have to pick Gwen up from school later.
I should be walking more than I am, I wish I could. But it keeps being cold and I just want to sit in my chair under blankets.
Our bed causes me pain. I wake up hurting if I sleep in bed, but if I sleep on the couch I wake up in no pain. I hate it. I'm trying to remove my mattress topper tonight to see if that helps. I really hope it does because I don't like being in pain (who does, that's a stupid thing to write.)

My brain feels like mush most days. I sit here wishing for someone to talk to, but I have nothing to say. I have time to write, but words aren't flowing. I gave way too much time to think and no energy to do anything that would be helpful. I can do a load of laundry but then I'm done. Today I made bread and cleaned a toilet, because I'm already in pain I figured it wouldn't hurt me more.

Everything is out of hand in the house. Messes and dirt and clutter.

The tv is always on. But I don't really watch it. I'm watching Charmed, just because I need something on and I don't really have to watch it every second. I stare at the messes and wish I could clean.

I should be starting physical therapy soon. I hope. It'll at least give me something I can do. I'll try and stretch my legs, my muscles are so tight and everything is uncomfortable.

I can not say this is worth it yet. In fact, so far it's been the  opposite. This has to be the hardest thing physically I've ever done.

Post-surgery

I'm 4 days post surgery. These last few days have been awful. The first day was the worst! I found out I can not handle diluadid. It makes me puke and Percocet makes me so dizzy I couldn't even sit up to eat.
My surgeon said that the vertebra was very wiggly and I should have a lot of relief after it all heals.
This part though? It is miserable.

In just a few days I will have a spinal fusion. I'm terrified. I have read everything I can about that surgery and recovery. I'm having nightmares about it, including this dream that the army decided that I would have surgery on base and it turned out to be a tent hospital and my surgeon was Keanu Reeves. Then Ray decided to break up with me but wouldn't let me have surgery in a tent.
Every night it is something else. I can not wait until I'm past the surgery and beginning to recover. I keep thinking of all of the things I'll be able to do in 6 months. Maybe I will be able to start doing yoga again. Maybe I'll be able to stand in the kitchen baking all day without pain. Maybe I'll be able to hike again without pain.

I really hope that by next year I'm not stuck in this land of depression any more. I'm tired of being tired. I'm tired of feeling like I'm about to snap.
I know I need to do a few things, like turn of my device and step away from computers and tv. I know that will help.
But then I'm in pain if I do too much, so I find myself back on my phone, on my butt on my chair in front of the tv.

I hate the way I feel. I don't want to have this sinking feeling anymore. I can't even put it into words, because I'm so lost.

Anxious.
Scared.
Worried.
Nervous.
Apprehensive.
So many other words that mean the same thing.

I know I'm making the right choice with surgery. But it doesn't make me me afraid.

Surgery thoughts

Monday I see my primary care doctor to get medical clearance so that my surgeon's office will schedule the surgery.

The reality of the surgery is causing me so much anxiety. I am not sure how to deal with it. I'm trying to think of all of the things that I hope for after surgery.

1. To stop taking most medicine, especially on a daily basis. To get back to taking smaller doses of ibuprofen since I won't be able to take it for a long while, and I'm basically living on it right now.
2. To be able to hike again without paying for it.
3. Being able to be active for more than one day in a row without paying for it. To be able to do yard work,  garden, paint.
4. To get in shape- to join a gym and get my body back to where I used to be, and hopefully-even better. I know I'll never run with Ray but maybe we can bike together eventually. Maybe we'll be like my aunt Connie and her hubby.
5. To dance without pain.

I know what I want in life, after the surgery, will take a long time, many months and maybe even more than a year, but I also know that if I stay like I am I'm going to slip into a worse place, and end up depressed and alone. I don't want the life I'm living right now to be my forever. 

Buzzing

Yesterday I went to the bathroom and when I stood up I realized I felt a buzzing/humming sensation in my pubic bone. I also realized I've felt it before recently. The feeling is like when you have your phone on vibrate in your pocket, and it goes off while you are walking around. Not like the feeling of holding it against your leg. It's not as intense. I've been feeling this all down my right leg, or it feels lot water is pouring down my leg, or it feels hot or cold, but not to the touch, just to me.

It worries me. Because it's a new, not uncommon, symptom of spondylolisthesis, and it is much more worrisome than many. Losing sensation in the saddle area is the beginning of a condition called cauda equina syndrome. I could end up permanently losing bladder and bowl control and having a permanent loss of sensation in that whole area. That scares me. I'm only 40, I don't want to get to that point.

So Monday morning, I'm going to call the surgeon and schedule an appointment to discuss have a spinal fusion (to schedule the surgery). I had planned to wait until Abi started 1st grade (next year) but I don't think that's in my best interest anymore. I'm just going to have to accept that this is going to happen. And hope that it will be for the best.

But

I'm so scared.
I'm scared of the surgery.
I'm scared of the pain killers.
I'm scared it will not make it better.
I'm just scared.

Chronic pain, second opinions, and drugs

You know, I never really gave chronic pain much thought before. I suppose that until you have it, no one really does think about it much.

These days I think of chronic pain all off the time, because I'm suffering from it. I feel ok in the morning, and so I go about my day. I often over do it, like I did today. So I end up with nerve impingement. Pins and needles all up and down my right leg. It feels like water being poured down my leg, warmth or burning on the outside of my right foot. Crampong in my calf.  And worst of all, a feeling of weakness in my foot.  

And so I spend hours and hours reading about the condition I have. Success stories from surgeries. Reasons not to get the surgery, reasons to get it. Around and around I go in the merry-go-round of spondy information. I feel like I'm spinning from it all, and still I don't know what to do. 

I'm tryng to get a second opinion, from an orthopaedic surgeon who specializes in the spine. But since he's a second opinion, I have his hoops to jump through tio see him. (Including getting a referral from my primary care doctor.)

I also need to get in to see a pain doctor, which I'm scared of, but I don't have to take opioids, I'm just hoping three are other options for me.

And now I need to go make dinner so I can go to bed early in hopes of stopping the nerve pain today.

Spondylolisthesis

I feel like I am always reading articles, blog posts, forums, about spondylolisthesis. I am torn on what to do. I mean obviously there is no prefect time to have surgery. Being "out of commission" for around 6 weeks, unable to drive at all for about the same, scares me.
So does worsening pain. The thought that I could need an emergency surgery, or be left with permanent nerve damage, terrifies me.
I'm 40, this isn't something I should be facing right now. I know my pain isn't yet that bad, MOST OF THE TIME. But I have days where it is, and I can't figure out what makes it better or worse. Well, if I'm lazy and do nothing I am likely to feel better than if I spent my day on my feet. But are there simple things I do on a good day? Like "today i stretched and iced my back and I was in less pain" or "today i vacuumed and swept and was in more pain". I really should keep track of my pain level and my activity level.
Of course if I go see the Dr and he'll order a flexion/extension  x-ray to see if my spondy is stable, and it turns out it isn't? I feel like that would be a HUGE reason to seriously consider the surgery.

All I know is that if I can maintain where I am I might be ok, but if it keeps getting worse? I can't even imagine. 

Surgery

I am seriously considering surgery to  "fix" my back. I recently had a follow up MRI to check my slippage. Since April 2017 my L5  has moved and I know I'm having more pain. And it looks like L4 might be moving as well.

Today I was cooking dinner, I had been standing up in the kitchen for 30 minutes and suddenly it felt like the outside of my right leg was covered in goose bumps (there were none!) That was 3 hours ago and my leg still feels wrong. I keep having strange sensations up and down it. I took a hot bath hoping for relief, but even while I was in there I could feel the nerve pain, like pouring  burning coffee down my leg.

Ever since I read my MRI results I've been feeling so afraid. I was sort of ok before that. But I feel depressed and miserable.

I know Will is 100% supportive of surgery because he knows I don't make these choices lightly, and he had known people who've had similar life altering surgeries with excellent results.

But I'm afraid, still. It is surgery. It isn't a guaranteed fix. My Dr said I have an  80% chance of relief because my pain is mostly nerve pain. And there is a long recovery period. That's scary.

But feeling like this for the rest of my life is scary, too. I said if there was changes in the MRI I would really look into surgery, because what's the likelihood it will continue to get worse? How likely am I to eventually get to the point of not being able to walk more than 5 minutes?

Making this choice is difficult. I wish there was a sure fire way to make the right one. But I'll spend the next month researching.

Pars Defect

It's been nearly a year since I posted. I'm still dealing with daily back pain. I'm tired, and every part of me is distracting because of it.

The only thing that isn't suffering, is my marriage. We've renewed our love for one another and things have never been better. But I digress.

I have a pars defect, a place where I either had a birth defect or a break in my lower vertebrae, that was ok, until I started running. The jarring motion caused me pain in my back and numbness in the nerves running down my right leg. So I've seen multiple doctors about it and had many scans. I'm going in for another MRI soon, so see if there is any change from the one i had on April of 2017.

I have three choices at this point-
1. Live with the pain, and be very careful.
2. Pain management (medicines that can help block the nerve pain).
3. Surgery- a fusion of the L5-S1 vertebra.

I've been living with the pain for 18 months now. It's depressing,  I want to be active but I have to be really careful, and I CAN NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES- RUN. Because every time I do it flares and takes weeks to get back to me being able to move without pain and without having that shooting burning, numb, weird nerve pain.

I am reluctant to try pain management. I researched it and anti depressants are commonly used to treat nerve pain, or anti convulsants.  Or opioids to dull the pain. I have Tylenol 3, from my bunion surgery, it does little to relieve any pain. Neither does tramadol (another narcotic that I have from the very beginning of this, it was prescribed by my primary care doctor the first time I went in for back pain.)

Surgery.....
Terrifying. Mainly because the doctor said that if I choose surgery, it will cause the vertebrae above the fusion to start taking on the impact and they will wear out faster, increasing my likelihood of needing further surgeries by 10-20% in the future. Plus, surgery hurts, an the recovery would not be fun. But it was a high rate of success since my main complaint is the nerve pain.

I'm waiting to make any concrete choices until my  MRI. If there of any measurable change, then surgery is an easy answer. I don't want this to get worse! But if it's exactly the same, maybe I can live with it, at least for another year. At which point Bee will be in 1st grade and I won't need to meet her at the bus stop every day.

I wish there was an easy answer. I had hoped that  wearing a brace would help (no) the epidural steroid shots would help (minimally, but they also have side effects that I didn't like), it would go away on its own (I've had issues go away before!) Alas, none of those are really the answer.

So, I keep waiting, like I've been doing for 18 months.

Appendectomy

She woke up Wednesday morning to tell me that she was having bowel problems. Her expression embarrassed, and also in pain. I told her to see if she felt better by the time school started, instead within an hour she was vomiting in the bathroom.
She spent the next 24 hours puking and moaning. She told me her stomach hurt, and wanted a hot pack. Rice in a sock, microwaved provided some relief. She couldn't keep anything down.
Thursday was the same. She slept fitfully, watch TV, wandered around the house, puked, showered, and repeated this over and over trying to find relief. But nothing really helped.
8pm, the younger girls were asleep (or at least in bed) and she came and sat on the couch to watch TV with us. We talked about her symptoms and noticed she was pointing mainly to the lower right side of her abdomen. We looked up appendicitis and after some discussion I headed to the emergency room with her 9:30.
10 pm we arrived and got checked in. The ride was miserable because every bump caused her to wince and grimace in pain.
Since she hadn't eaten or kept anything down in days, they almost immediately got her started on fluids as well as morphine and zofran. The doctor discussed her symptoms and agreed with appendicitis. It would just take a miserable ultrasound (since she's very thin) to show an enlarged angry appendix.
Antibiotics were started and we waited for a room in the children's hospital. We didn't get taken up until 3:30am.
At 7 the surgeon came and talked to us. At this point she was nearly at a 10 as far as pain. The medicine they'd given her was barely taking the edge off of the excruciating pain.
Daddy arrived around 8:20. And about 9 they took her down to the OR.
Her surgery took longer than we thought it would because when they got in to her the appendix had ruptured and was leaking into her back. There is a term for it, but I can't remember, basically her appendix was located behind her colon so it wasn't as bad as it could have been, but it was more than we hoped.
My mom and dad arrived while she was surgery, they were going to watch Abi, Natalie and Gwen so that Ray and i could be present at the hospital for Rhayn.
When she came out of surgery i chose to go home and shower and nap a little. Knowing that Ray was there for her and that she would be quite drugged for the rest of the afternoon and evening.
I came back to the hospital in time to bring Ray supper and talk to Rhayn a little. Before going home for the night.
This morning I got back to the hospital at about 8:30. Brought Ray breakfast but the smell made Rhayn nauseated so we ate in the parents lounge.
We were able get Rhayn up to walk around the room a little, but she is still in a lot of pain. She also hasn't eaten and they still haven't let her have anything by mouth.
In order for her to get to go home she needs to eating and drinking (in order to take her antibiotics by mouth) as well as able to get out of bed.
Right now she can barely get out of bed.

All of this was made more complicated by her having a cold and her lung function is a little compromised. But she's a healthy young girl and in a few weeks I am sure she'll be back to normal.