It’s been too long!

The last time I was here I wrote about my broken heart. Something discovered before I had a spinal fusion procedure done. (L4-S1, not a lot.) I had intended to write about that a lot. Pre, Post, Recovery, all of it.

Not much to say though. I spent one night in the hospital. After one night at home, I had debilitating muscle spasms develop in my upper back and neck. Go to the ER two times kind of bad. They could not find one fucking Valium in that whole hospital!! Not one!! (Did you know Valium is a pretty good muscle relaxant too?) 48 hours of what I will unashamedly call MISERY.

If you are having any surgical procedures, I suggest not doing it anywhere near a long weekend – especially New Year’s Eve. NO FUCKING BODY IS AROUND IF SHIT GOES SIDEWAYS!

Tuesday the grocery store pharmacy opened at 9am. Had a 10 mg valium in me before 10 am. Another four hours later. (supposed to take every six, I know.) Six hours later took a half. Problem solved. Never too another pain pill after that. No big ones anyway, perhaps half a dozen Tylenol that first month.

Was terribly bored and frustrated by all the restrictions and the really brutal winter we were experiencing. The medicos told me to walk as much as I could, wanted to. They also told me, do not fall down. If you do, and you break the very fragile bones in your spine where we put those big screws, there will be nowhere to put new ones and then I would be really screwed!

I am fortunate that I work from home. Dull desk job thing. One of the other no-nos, to avoid blood clots in legs, is sitting too long. So, every thirty minutes I was up and walking, like a fucking hamster, back and forth along that thirty-six feet for twenty laps. Then, back to work. All. Day. Long.

That was the worst of it. The procedure itself went well. No problems there. I felt fine from the moment the spasms stopped. No back pain, at all. Not leg pain or numbness anymore. Barely notice the loss of flexibility. Then again, I have not done much in the way of rehab because whenever I tried to get into it hard, the fucked up heart valve intervened. Was pretty discouraging.

Well, this post was supposed to be about something entirely different. The back surg stuff only to get you caught up on me. However, it got long and messy and dull. So, I will end this one here and make the other another post altogether.

I say this a lot but, hope to live up to it now. I will be writing more, posting more.

Peace-Out-Boy-Scout!

Ant-Knee