So I'm having back surgery tomorrow

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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Well folks, I am t-minus 25 hours and counting for back surgery. Part of me–the part that’s been dealing with this on and off for 18 years–is saying, “Bring it on! PLEASE!” But of course, another part of me is saying…“Eeeeeeeeeeeep!”

To get technical, I’m having a microlaminotomy, a microdiscectomy,and a foraminotomy. Everyone got that? :wink: It’s minor as far as back surgeries go–they’re going to go in via a 1-2" incision, remove a dime-sized piece of lamina (part of the back of the spine) to give the pressed nerve root more room, and then remove the part of the disc that has herniated into the nerve’s space. The pain I’ve had for years–and constantly now for 6 months–that shoots through my hip and down my leg should be gone IMMEDIATELY after surgery as the pressure is taken off the nerve. I can’t imagine waking up pain-free, but will be glad to!

The neurosurgeon said I’m an ideal candidate: I’m relatively young (33), relatively thin (considering I had a baby 4mos ago, I could kiss him for that), and I have a herniation at L5/S1. Just for added fun, it herniates to the left–which he prefers as he’s right-handed. He has a sterling reputation with the knife–a former patient and coworker have had nothing but positive things to say, and a check online of a complaint history came up clean (and in fact, his reviews were extremely high scoring, especially in actual procedural work).

Hardest part for me is I’ll be hospitalized overnight…I won’t see my 4-month-old sonfor 24 hours! :frowning: My sister and nephew are coming to care for him during the day, and DeathLlama will come home for the night care (God help him). I hope it doesn’t screw up my milk supply too much. I’ll have to pump and dump for several hours, of course, and I have plenty of formula on hand jusssssst in case.

I won’t be able to do much for about a week, but will be able to gradually increase my level of activity. Thankfully, DL is a teacher too, so he’ll be around to help care for me for the next few weeks.

Any positive vibes you want to send my way are welcome. And any of you who’ve been there, done that, your happily-ever-after stories are welcome as well. :wink:

Eeeeeeeeeep!

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Good luck! I have a severe herniation at L5S1 as well, but so far have been able to manage without surgery.

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Positive vibe…positive vibe…

If yours turns out anything like mine, you WILL wake up (mostly) pain free. I say mostly because you’ll have an incision, but the immediate relief from back pain will be noticeable. It’ll take a while for the muscles that were neglected from the nerve pinching to get back to normal, but the main thing you’ll have to be careful of is doing too much! Without the nagging pain, you’ll be tempted to over do it. Hoisting a 4 mo old probably won’t be a good idea for a while. The doctor told me nothing heavier than a cup of coffee or a can of beer.

Nothing but happily-ever-after here.

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Oh, and after all the pain, for such a long time…I never had so much as an aspirin for pain AFTER the surgery. It was like flicking a switch to turn the pain off.

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Sounds awesome. :slight_smile:

Tell me–how long did it take you to return to more or less normal activity? School starts in 3 weeks (1st day of school is Aug. 31)–is it within reason that I could begin the year with my students?

I won’t ask when I can ride my horse. :wink: But FWIW, my neurosurgeon has horses, too–same breed, in fact, though the MUCH fancier ones–so he’s very understanding about my need (yes, need) to ride again. His daughter showed all the way up to the Nationals level, and he told me he knows better than to try and separate a girl and her horse!

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After the micro (I had a radical or whatever “the big one” is called, years ago) I wasn’t released by the doctor for 2 months. That was more of a precaution on his part since the radical was the next disc down and he didn’t want to take any chances and end up doing a fusion if I blew it. A lady I work with’s husband had a micro and he was back at work on light duty in 2 weeks, full duty in a month. He’s still doing fine, it’s been over 5 years now.

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I wish you all the best for your surgery, Ruffian, and a speedy recovery. Hope you have as much success as Duke of Rat clearly did!

It’s great to hear when a surgery goes successfully – keep us informed!

[I’ve had two [L4-L5-S1 fusions](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6053008&postcount=16), and certainly wouldn’t claim complete success. However, there’s no way of knowing how bad things would be if I hadn’t had the surgeries…]

I’ll be thinking of your tomorrow morning, Ruffian, with fingers crossed!

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i hope things went well, and you are happily pain free.

where do we send the chocolate??

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Just today I did intraoperative and post-op x-rays on two cases exactly like yours.

It’s pretty cool, but I won’t go into detail about what’s going on (or, in) during the intraoperative shots. The post op shots are basically making sure that there’s nothing in there that shouldn’t be.

When the lumbar surgery patients are getting ready to leave the hospital, they often come in for one last lumbar series. I tell ya, there have been times when they’re almost in tears due to the lack of pain. They’ve been hurting for so long and then, poof, they wake up and, except for some tenderness around the incision…

IT DON’T HURT NO MORE!!!

Those days really make me smile.

May your surgery and recovery be perfect. Good luck.

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Missed the opportunity to wish you luck before hand - but stopped in to send healing thoughts your way. Get well soon!

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Thinking about you and hoping things are going well - and imagining the grin on your face when your back doesn’t hurt anymore!

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I have cried from exactly what you describe. I was in severe pain for quite a while, I was just about done for. I couldn’t have lived like that much longer. Couldn’t walk, sit, stand, lay down, nothing without major pain.

Then poof. It was gone. I started out walking across an open field one day, and before I knew it I was 100 times farther than I could have drug myself in the same amount time before the surgery. And then I cried.