6 week surgical follow-up

6 week follow up went great! As you can see, the disc is sitting in there just perfectly and when I flex or extend my neck it behaves exactly as an organic disc would. And just look how perfect the other discs are! It's a beautiful sight to me. This is the last section of my spine that's not fused.

The knots, or adhesions, in my shoulder area remain, leftover from when the nerves were causing muscle spasms constantly. I bought some tennis balls and am rolling around on them trying to work the knots out, also doing lots of stretching in that area. Dr. Spivak was impressed with the range of motion that I've already been able to acheive, movement that was impossible or impossible without pain before. No more pain going down my arms, yay!

I've got an appointment with their pain management specialist for a shot or two next month, as I'm more concerned with the pain in my legs coming from my lower back than I am about the neck.

Physical Therapy yet again

I'm back for yet another round of Physical Therapy. Those of you who know me know that I am not crazy for PT for a variety of reasons.

So I had my first appointment last Tuesday. The therapist was nice enough, but not nearly as aggressive as I'd like her to be with the massage. I hadn't been to acupuncture for a few weeks and I was needing those knots to be worked out; her gentle massage just didn't cut it for me. Then, and this is really weird, she gave me the heat pack at the end of the session (don't they usually do that at the beginning, to warm the muscles up to work them?)and to top it all off, she put this huge heat pack under my shoulder so I was laying on top of it and all uneven. It really threw me out of whack and I hate myself for not opening my mouth sooner but she was with another patient and I didn't want to be a noodge. I had sciatica all the way home, I think from being all out of whack and not laying flat. I'm telling her not to do that again when I have my next appointment tomorrow.

Had another follow up with Dr. Bartoli. She (and her med student) did a nerve function test on me and, thank goodness, all is fine with my nerves. She thinks the numbness and "funny bone" feeling in my fingers is from the muscles in my shoulder and thoracic region not pulling their share of the weight so to speak and putting pressure on the nerves that affect those parts. I also got a few blessed trigger point injections, which never fail to please.

"How'm I doin'?"

Shame on me for not updating, but I've got a good reason; I've been busy doing other things rather than obsessing about my back!

So I'm seeing a physical therapist for the stabbing, tearing pain in the middle of my upper back. It was most likely brought on by me trying to overdo everything cause I just felt so good and ready to try to stretch and work out like I normally do, well, like I normally did almost a year and a half ago. Swimming, which is supposed to be so good, probably should have been done with a bit more restraint than I went for it, but say la vee.

The PT mostly just massages the region around where the pain originates. It's all 'crunchy' cause there are so many knots in the muscles. This isn't a relaxing massage, either, folks. She puts some real elbow grease into it and I'm usually sore just from the rubbing, but I know it's good sore cause it means that blood and oxygen are getting to the muscles that need it. Then I do some light, very light, exercises for that region, and what do you know? It's getting better. When I go back for my post-op visit in June it will be six months and that's when Theresa says they usually start the PT for the lower back, the area that was actually most affected by the surgery, even though what I'm experiencing with my upper back is a result of my whole skeletal structure being shifted around. This Friday will be five months to the day since the surgery, we'll see how I'm doing then.

Abdominal Incision 12 weeks

OK, still not looking too much better, but they say it needs three months to work fully. Wouldn't it look better in three months anyway? It seems that this is similar to Groundhog Day (the day, not the movie), in that if the ground hog sees his shadow it's six more weeks of winter, and if not it will be an early spring. Well, how much earlier can spring come than the second week of March, which is six weeks from Groundhog Day? It's the same thing in my book. Anyway, I digress, but only because I'm just not too excited about the results from the Neosporin Scar Solution so far. I'm hoping that there will be a big improvement all of a sudden in the next few weeks because as you can see in the picture, I bought a two piece bathing suit! It's a TYR fitness suit and it's going to be great for swimming laps. It fits great and I was having a real problem with the one pieces; my torso is longer by at least a quarter to a half an inch, so all the suits that fit my hips were digging into my shoulders because they were too short for me. So I'll be flaunting my scars at the London Terrace pool, I hope no one is squeamish!

Comic relief

At first glance, this xray doesn't look too much different fromt this one, but if you look closely, you can see that the fused area is filling in a bit more with bone.

That's good.

Right after I was shown into an exam room, one of the interns came in to see me. Last visit Dr. B. brought this kid in to see my progress and introduced him, saying that he had "scrubbed in" on my surgery. (Thanks to Grey's Anatomy, I now know what that means.) So this kid (I kid you not, he was like 12 years old) comes in and asks me a bunch of questions about pain, activities, etc. He examined the scars and said they looked "good," whatever that means, and took some notes. I asked him about the slight sciatica feeling pain I was getting when I lean forward sometimes and his answer was basically, don't lean forward like that. *rim shot* Who is this guy, Jackie Vernon?

Dr. Balderston came in a few minutes later and said it looked "absolutely beautiful," and was healing exactly as it should, which of course is great to hear. I joked with him that usually when someone says I look beautiful, they are looking at my face, but I'd take the compliment however it came. He joked back (unusual for him, he's usually all business)that for him, face, back, whatever, it was all the same. It felt so good to joke around with him, after all the seriousness in the past year or so. What a relief! I'm now allowed to start swimming again, and can use any of the elliptical machines in the gym, as well as the stationary bike. This will give some much needed variety to my workouts, and help to redevelop my leg muscles. I still can't believe how much walking still hurts my legs (and feet!).

My next follow up appointment isn't until June (three months from now!) and I joked to Dr. Balderston that if at the three month follow up had the intern coming in first, I wondered who would be coming at the six month visit, the janitor? *rim shot*

But seriously folks, everything is going just like it should, and that's no joke!

Abdominal Incision 11 weeks

This week's installment of the Neosporin Scar Solution Challenge.
It's not looking much different than last week. I'm also a bit concerned about the formation of scar tissue. I'm trying to massage the area gently, but it is still quite sore and I can feel the thick scar tissue that's formed underneath. I don't want it to adhere to any layer of muscle in there, cause then it will look ugly and lumpy and there goes my goal of a six pack by summer.

I see Balderston on Friday and let's hope he gives me the go ahead for more activities (like bending!), and maybe some physical therapy to break up the scar tissue.

Abdominal Incision 10 weeks

On with the Neosporin Scar Solution Challenge ...
It doesn't look too much different from last week's photo, but I didn't really expect results in one week.

I've still got the sciatica-type pain in my left leg and hip, and I'm now thinking that walking Tony, when he's in an excited state and pulling a bit on the leash, isn't the best thing for me. True, he's only 17 pounds, but I just had major surgery 10 weeks ago.

I'm feeling very frustrated right now. I mentioned before that I had stopped going to the gym in favor of walking Tony, but with the weather being absolutely frigid, neither one of us wanted to spend much time outside. Then I started to feel the pain and panicked and started to try to take it easy. But after about a week or so of that, I started to go stir crazy. I need exercise, mentally almost more than physically at this point. Plus with Tony being all in an anxious state about something, I needed to stop and rearrange things.

So I went to the gym today and rode the recumbent bike for twenty-five minutes and then came home. We'll increase the dog-walker's time in the afternoon from a half hour to an hour so Tony gets his exercise too and see how we all do. From just that short session at the gym, I'm already feeling better.