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Getting Surged On


Cat

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That would be a lumbar microdiscectomy, to be exact. Yup, today I am getting my back opened up and parts of my spinal column removed.

I have had a herniated disk (well, a couple actually, but only one that's currently causing a lot of trouble) for almost a year now. It was bad, got better, then at the beginning of last December got much worse. I have been thru therapy, oral steroids, epidural cortisone shots, etc. Nothing seems to be working, so it's time to get out the knife.

I am currently on more opiates than House. The big difference between me and House, tho, is that he's a fictional charcter and doesn't actually feel pain. :) I, on the other hand, still hurt like h3ll.

Hopefully that will be all over in a few hours. Well, mostly over anyway, as I've been told there has probably been nerve damage and there will be residual pain/tingling/numbness from that for quite some time. But it should be much better than it is now.

I'm not sure what the recovery time will be like. I can't come back to work for 2 weeks. I'm not supposed to sit for more than 30 min at a time. At the moment, sitting is very painful and I'm lucky to get 10 min in a chair before the pain becomes too severe. That would be why I haven't been on LAVA much -- it's hard to type when you're walking around.

This is a routine procedure (for my surgeon, anyway :) ) and if all goes well I should be back home tonite. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Cat

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That would be a lumbar microdiscectomy, to be exact. Yup, today I am getting my back opened up and parts of my spinal column removed.

Good luck with the surgery and recovery.

I'm not supposed to sit for more than 30 min at a time. At the moment, sitting is very painful and I'm lucky to get 10 min in a chair before the pain becomes too severe. That would be why I haven't been on LAVA much -- it's hard to type when you're walking around.

People seem to text quite well with their iPhones and Blackberries while walking. That might not be so good of an idea, though, as people have been known to fall into manholes.

Tim

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That would be a lumbar microdiscectomy, to be exact. Yup, today I am getting my back opened up and parts of my spinal column removed.

I have had a herniated disk (well, a couple actually, but only one that's currently causing a lot of trouble) for almost a year now. It was bad, got better, then at the beginning of last December got much worse. I have been thru therapy, oral steroids, epidural cortisone shots, etc. Nothing seems to be working, so it's time to get out the knife.

I am currently on more opiates than House. The big difference between me and House, tho, is that he's a fictional charcter and doesn't actually feel pain. :) I, on the other hand, still hurt like h3ll.

Hopefully that will be all over in a few hours. Well, mostly over anyway, as I've been told there has probably been nerve damage and there will be residual pain/tingling/numbness from that for quite some time. But it should be much better than it is now.

I'm not sure what the recovery time will be like. I can't come back to work for 2 weeks. I'm not supposed to sit for more than 30 min at a time. At the moment, sitting is very painful and I'm lucky to get 10 min in a chair before the pain becomes too severe. That would be why I haven't been on LAVA much -- it's hard to type when you're walking around.

This is a routine procedure (for my surgeon, anyway :) ) and if all goes well I should be back home tonite. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Cat

AS the son of and brother to sewing nuts, I recalled one of those "accidents" with them "auto sewing" themsleves.

I hope all works out well.

Ben

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Good luck Cat!

I had my hemilaminectomy/microdiscectomy a year ago (and I no longer shovel snow...). It took about two weeks to get back to work (I wrote GenINI while I was down), but about six months to really feel right again. And yep, numbness and tingling that comes and goes to this day.

Don't be afraid to ask for an anti-inflammatory if you need it... it helped me a bunch (though I was monumentally grumpy for a week from the methyl prednisone). Also, definitely look into physical therapy, and actually do the exercises and stretches!

Take care,

Joe Z.

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  • 2 weeks later...

My back and I are back!

Many thanks all for the well-wishes. I really appreciated them.

The surgery went fine. I then, of course, over did it afterwards and set recovery back a little, but I learned my lesson and am taking it a little easier now.

Sure enough, there is a bit of residual pain from nerve damage. That will just take awhile to go away. I'm weaning myself off the vicodin...

Sitting still hurts but I've put my dev computer up on a box on my workbench so I can program standing up. :)

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PaulG asked me how I was doing on a complainer thread I started over on Site Feedback. I figured I'd answer here.

I'm hanging in there. The pain is getting a little less every day. Which is a good direction for it to be going. I go back to see the dr next week and hopefully he clears me to start physical thereapy.

Thanks for asking!

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