9 Days post op posterior Cervical Fusion

TN, I have thinking about you & wondering how you are doing. What a great report from you to say the least. So glad to read the horrible pain is abating & you are finding the post op pain tolerable. Just a little food for thought, you mentioned stopping the dilaudid. If you have been on it consistently, perhaps you should consider cutting your dose in half. Give it a week at least so that you don't have the potential of any side effects.

As far as the issue with the screw I am guessing this will be a wait & see as your healing progresses. Please take good care of yourself. Being this pain free so fast is all new to you, so please do not over do things.

Keep us posted.

TN, I am going to try to revive your post-op thread here, hopefully we can keep this one going, lol.

You are approximately 15 days post-op? Too soon to think about traveling at this point. In all honesty at the 3 month mark very short 1/2 day outings. Six month mark see how you feel & where you are at. I know it sounds like a long time away. Listen to your body & what your gut feeling tells you about getting out & about.

I have made trips to please my husband & those ended up a major disaster. I am talking about 2 days after getting to the destination we had to leave & come home. I would get taken to ER & get admitted for a few days. I knew going in it was a big risk. I stopped doing this because it was not worth it. I finally told my husband that I was done with taking trips when I did not feel well. He would always tell me, you are just tired & you need to get away to relax, lol.

We just had a conversation 3 days ago about him wanting to go on a trip, S.D. or where ever. I cannot ride in a vehicle long distance. I could maybe do a short a short plane trip. I have zero interest in a cruise, too many people & smells in places too small for me. I would go nuts on a cruise. Keep in mind we are lake people & get out on our boat, lol.

Bottom line, explain to your husband you would like to travel in the future, however, it's a trip that you want to enjoy with him. Nothing worse than feeling bad & being away from home. Take care.

TN, try to save yourself some extra grief & let go of the guilt feelings. It's time to take inventory of all the medical conditions you have dealt with. Meaning look at the surgeries that you have undergone. Each time you had surgery the decision was made to improve your overall being, this includes being able to do things with your husband that you both have missed doing. It has been all about getting some sort of semblance of your life back. None of this was self inflicted! It took me awhile to realize everything I had done or tried was to improve myself and be a better functioning family member.

Does your drs office have a patient portal online? If so, perhaps a brief note to your dr can be done now, before the appt next week. This could be done without causing any issues. If you do not have this, then I suggest a call to your drs nurse, let her discuss it with your dr ahead of time.

I would avoid being in a car as much possible for awhile. You have a lot of healing to do on the inside regardless of how you have healed on the outside. I took my grandson to school this morning, saw a pickup t-bone a lady in a 20 mph school zone!! He was coming out of the school parking lot & hit her. Low impact crash but he tore up the entire passenger side of her SUV.

Maybe it's time to share your feelings with your husband. Let him know you are aware it has impacted both of your lives & you are very much aware of the impact it has made on him. I would remind him your goal is to heal from this surgery with the very best outcome you can have. You are at the stage now, that further surgery down the road is something that needs to be avoided.

I completely understand where your thoughts are on this subject. Ha, ha, I just bought a topical ointment on Amazon for pain. My grandson's golf instructor told me about it. Her aunt uses it & says it's fantastic, so I will give it a try. If it works any I will post about it here, lol. Hey, at this stage I am still looking.

TallerNow:
You can only do what you can do. You live in your body and know it best. Trust your intuitions and listen to your inner voice.

I was a busy and engaged little gal until the looming shadow of chronic illness caught up with me. I worked for Accenture/Arthrur Anderson as a consultant, a high pressure position. My endocrine conditions, invisible to the outside world, had been taking a toll. My body compensated for years beyond what was reasonable . . . until it could no longer.

It was like I was on the freeway of life, traveling down the thoroughfare at 65 mph with the greater populace. And then fragile health dictated that I take an off-ramp exit.

That was then. This is now.

The best that any of us can do is to do the best that we can. Listening to the body that is our own.

I get up each morning and out both feet on the ground. Some days, this is a major accomplishment in itself.

As a physical therapist, I worked with individuals who had sustained severe head and spinal cord injuries. The worst of the worst. Lives shattered in an instant. My own brother is a brain cancer survivor. These experiences temper my own relationship with myself as I wade through my own compelling health issues. Compassion for self is a must.

I would encourage you to begin open and honest dialogue with your husband. It sounds as though you have a marriage and relationship that is genuine in care for one another.

One thing I regret is not asking more directly for what I have needed from my nuclear family. I hide the depths of my struggles, keeping an outward appearance and tempo that I was A-OK - when I obviously was not. My family kept hoping upon hope that I would “get better.” I had made it through ICU stays where the prognosis was grim. It created a certain expectation that I would always be able to marshall through.

We each reach our personal limit, at some point. It is less any single health issue that has deflated me. It is more the cumulative weight of multiple health issues and the sustained slog through the years. We all experience this, to one degree or another. It becomes more difficult to reclaim our baseline with each health hiccup.

Life may now be different for you and your husband then you would want or intend it to be.

Do not shy away from conversation and dialogue with your husband. In sharing, there comes the humanness that sustains us. In sharing, common ground is to be found. Be open to each other’s experience.

I have recently been told that my intestinal fragility is not something that I will recover from. There is an expiration date. It is not expected to be immediate, but it is defined.

I do not feel sad. I was not surprised by the discussion with my Palliative Care team.

It does make me want to express to members here the fragility of life. Say what you need to say to those that you love. Live your with no regrets. Live your authentic life. You get but this one life. No second acts. Enjoy it as best as you can.
Karen

Thanks everyone for weighing in.

Karen, you are so right, life is precious and fragile, which ties into what Darla mentioned; to do as much as we can for those we love. The sacrifices of our caretakers can’t go unnoticed. And I believe the most important thing in life is love.

Things will sort themselves out. I am just three weeks post op and the trauma and anesthesia effects on my body and mind are still fresh, not allowing me to think clearly. I also need to work out my own issues as to why I always feel so guilty for being a limitation to my husband.

I hope we can all embrace this day and the blessings around us. And even if we are in a not so good situation knowing too (as Karen mentioned) that there is always someone who has it worse. Enjoy the day, friends.

TN, it's been awhile since we have heard from you. When you get a minute we would love to hear from you & get an update.

TN, I happy to hear that you have seen improvement from the old pain! I can tell by your tone in the post you are in a better place with things.

Hopefully your PM doc will increase your pump or add whatever he feels is necessary. Don't give up on the pump, you are still early with it. I am happy that your PM doc is smart about pumps, not all docs are.

I look forward to your updates.

White Beard,
Thanks for the suggestion, I was definitely going to bring it up at my next appointment. I had a terrible time after first anterior four level fusion, eating only soft foods for four months but it gradually got better. But this swallowing and what feels like swelling in my throat when I talk is new and worsening since my recent multilevel posterior fusion. When you went to the ENT, were they able to do anything for you? I know most if the time when nerves are damaged they just throw up their hands and say live with it.

Don’t you also have a pain pump? If so, how long did it take before you got relief? And did you ever go backwards in your pain relief? My husband keeps saying it is a waste and I should just get it removed. I think we still have more to try both in dosage and types of medication. I have had it since last May.

Thanks all - always good to be back in my original pain support family. ❤️

Thanks for the input.
My pain pump has a lots of room to increase the meds. One of my problems has been when they try to increase me more than 2-3% I get sick (nausea, dizzy). So we have been doing a 2% increase every few weeks for over a year then stopped before my neck surgery. Then resumed recently (at 0.4mg/ day of morphine). My dose is super low. I have always been super sensitive to meds. So I think we will work on a more aggressive increase and possibly adding bupovocaine (sp?). One of my worsening issues in my thoracic and lumbar spine are two areas that feel unstable, where one wrong move and my back goes into complete lockdown. I have a hard time imaging how a pain pump would prevent my back going into spasm.

I imagine that they will need to run tests on my swallowing etc. I read up on it yesterday and it could be anything from residual nerve damage from my original 2014 neck surgery (although read that even posterior surgery of recent can cause it) to bone spurs, hardware issues etc. I just know it is getting worse to the point of being scary.

I appreciate you and all of my friends here. You continue to be a blessing.
TN

Thanks for the encouragement Susie. It is very discouraging right now. My neck is having new issues including the swallowing and talking issue, and my low back and leg pain is awful. I see the neurosurgeon tomorrow and my PM next week. It can’t come soon enough since I am limited in activity right now from unmanaged pain. My PM has said there is lots of room for medication and that I need to get my dose up to be effective. I already have numbness in my left foot and leg so perhaps I wouldn’t notice a little bit more. I’ll keep you posted. Thanks again for the input.
❤️TN

TN, it's been a while since we have heard from you. Please give us an update when you can!