Four days till surgery!

Yesterday I had a call from Dr. Balderston. He confirmed what I said here about the logistics of the surgery. Dr. Wernsing will open my abdomen and push my internal organs aside, then Dr. B will begin working on my spine. He said they will start from the bottom, L5-S1, and work up to L3-4, inserting as many as three ProDiscs total (IF he can fit them in). If he can't replace the discs in L4-5 and L3-4 he'll have to do a fusion on those and that will be done through the posterior incision. He also said they will tilt the vertebrae back from this anterior opening so that I can stand up straight again.

He assured me he'll be getting lots of rest this weekend, and that I'll see him just prior to going to sleep so I can do "what I need to do." He explained that some patients want to squeeze his hands to be sure that he doesn't have a tremor (sounds like I'm not the only one watching too much Grey's Anatomy!) I said the sight of him with clean glasses and in scrubs and not a golf shirt was good enough for me.