Surgery: the Recovery

Here’s the text of an email I sent to everyone at my office earlier today:

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Surgery was very successful. Both the leg pain and muscle spasms went away immediately after surgery. I was discharged from the hospital 3 days after I was admitted.

Since discharge, I’ve finally gotten the general anesthesia out of my system and am, overall, feeling much better, although I do have to take naps. I tire easily.

Despite all that, I’ve started having severe leg pains in the left leg. Before  surgery, my symptoms were over 90 percent in the right leg.

The left leg pain never goes entirely away, and at its worst, is like kidney stone pain — that is, it really, really hurts. But with medicines and staying off my feet, the pain subsides. As I type this, I’m hurting very little at all — thanks to a heating pad and large doses of pain killing medications.

It turns out that this is a fairly common side effect of back surgery and should be temporary. I likely have some inflammation and swelling that is pinching the nerve, which should go away on its own.

I’ve just had a CT scan of my back, and my surgeon is checking to be certain that the leg pain will be temporary. I should hear from him today or tomorrow. But it doesn’t feel like the pain I had pre-surgery.

In the meantime, this is the first time I’ve been at my home computer since the night before surgery. I have periods when I’m relatively clear headed and desperate to get out the house and periods when I can’t even form a sentence, due to the pain meds and muscle relaxers.

I’m not able to drive yet, but I am walking pretty well for this close to surgery. Leg pain keeps me from doing much walking, but with a cane, I can get around the house without help.

And so I don’t expect to be in the office this week. I’m going to try to respond to my private email correspondence today and tomorrow. If I continue to improve at this pace, I should be able to actually bill some time early next week — especially if the leg pain subsides on its own, which I expect to happen.

Thanks to everyone for their prayers and concern. I’ve been wonderfully supported by everyone.

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Since this was written, it appears that I have had a fluid build up at the incision site. The surgeon placed two drainage tubes in my back during surgery and removed one shortly afterwards.

Well, the second one just kinda fell out on its own before it was supposed to. I probably didn’t execute my “logroll” maneuver correctly at some point. (You try it stoned out of your mind on narcotics. I mean, when the room is already spinning around and some nurse tells you to “Logroll!” and you’ve got 20 bajilllion tubes and monitors connected to every body part you have — some quite sensitive to movement — this is not nearly as easy as you might think.)

(By the way, next time you’re in the hospital and they stick an O2 monitor on your finger, have them tape it to one of your toes! Hospitals are much more endurable when you have access to your hand, rather than having it tied up giving O2 signals.

(But we had an extraordinary nurse who let me move the accursed monitor to my big toe — and it made me much more comfortable. I think it helps to act a little crazy.)

When my wife checked my bandages this evening, clearly a large amount of fluid had left the wound. This seems to have been a very good thing, as the pain is pretty much gone.

Unfortunately, if the surgeon confirms this interpretation in the morning, I will no longer be an object of concern and pity — but a project to be whipped into fighting shape. It’ll be time to start walking and exercising and getting well.

Oh, well.

I won’t be well enough to attend the LSU game, but I should at least be able to stay awake long enough to watch it from home.

PS — Even though this spinal fusion involved twice as much surgery as the last one, I came out of surgery with much less pain. I’ve had great nursing care at every hospital, but this time the care was very consistently good.

Every single employee seemed to enjoy his or her work and providing great patient care. And I did indeed receive top notch care.

Brookwood Hospital, Birmingham, Alabama.

Even the food was good. Occasionally, my wife slipped out to the cafeteria and bought me something not on the menu, but she never had to leave hospital grounds to find good food.