Thanks all you guys!!!
Been home now for three days, undergoing in-home therapy. Instead of answering each of your comments, here is a thing I wrote up explaining what happened.
Itās been exactly 17 days since I sat at this computer. On the 26th of July, I was taken by ambulance to the hospital as I could no longer stand or sit, only able to lay on my back. Not because of paralysis but because of pain. Any movement was so incredibly painful it was damned near unbearable. When I arrived at the emergency room, it was packed. This is the largest hospital complex within a 250 mile radius, having just under 1000 beds. Covid 19, the āD" variety had it packed. No rooms available anywhere. They didnāt even have a gurney available. The hospital was borrowing gurneys from the ambulance companies. So, they had them put me on a wooden bench about 25 to 30 inches wide on my back by a window in the waiting room. There were no empty chairs in that room while we were there. I stayed there for 28 hours, surviving on Tylenol tablets by the handsful. As I take Eliquis, I canāt take aspirin or Advil, etc. Susan managed to get a urinal bottle and covered me with a large towel so I could pee in the center of a huge and packed waiting room as there was no way I could walk to the John. Those 28 hours will go down as one of my significant lifetime experiences.
Finally, on the following afternoon, they managed to see me in the emergency room lab. They took a CT scan, a PT scan, and MRI, an ultra sound and a (Hide) scan. My L-4 and L-5 (Lumbar) vertebras were extended a full half inch beyond my spine, leaving the hole inside for the spinal column cord of about a quarter inch in diameter, pinching the nerves to that point. Now, after a total of 35 hours, they finally found me a bed in Oncology just after it came open. They scheduled surgery with a Neurosurgeon the next morning. I was not aware that the spinal surgery I required was performed almost exclusoively by neurosurgeons. I was being prepared for surgery when they reported my surgeon who had routine testing for covid -19 had just tested positive and went into quarantine. The surgery was rescheduled for Monday morning by another surgeon. My younger sister, Jeri, who has been a nurse for something like 30 + years, had warned Susan to avoid that particular doctor as she felt him to be incompetent. I refused him and had to wait two more days for another neurosurgeon to be assigned. He had a great reputation and I accepted. Iām normally not that particular you guys, but a simple slip of the knife in that procedure and permanent paralysis below the waist is the result.
On Tuesday the 3rd of August, I had the surgery and they removed the problem discs. The surgery went well and they kept me for the following three days. They had me up and walking the day following the surgery. I encountered no problems at all with the surgery itself except for pain that would normally follow such a procedure. However, keep in mind that they had been giving me Oxycodone tablets every two hours alternating with Morphine injections as the pain had been so intense. By the time I left the hospital, I had been on those drugs for a total of 16 days and nights. In the past, I have always refused pain medications during treatment for broken bones and for those five cancers I had three years ago, because they make me really nauseous which was usually worse than the pain. In this case I more than welcomed them.
I was released to go home on Friday, the 6th of this month. I opted for in-home therapy visits instead of being transferred to a live-in therapy clinic. I felt pretty good and never gave any thought to taking the Oxycodone pills they sent home with me. Friday night, I went into withdrawal although I wasnāt aware that was what I was experiencing. It lasted about 24 hours and was worse than anything I could imagine. Hallucinations, convulsions, wild, insane dreams and so on. When I reported this to the nurse from therapy, she advised me that it was common to have withdrawal symptoms especially after taking that amount of those narcotics over such a lengthy period of time. The two rum and cokes I had used to celebrate homecoming Friday evening likely didnāt help the matter either.
Anyway, to sum up, I am feeling much better, I am up and around. My limitations for the next six weeks are what therapists call, āBLTā. No bending, lifting or twistingā. The only other problems is an inability to sleep at night. Iām working on that. The prognosis is that after healing I will be able to do pretty much anything I could before and probably even more as the doctors say this condition is likely a minimum of a couple of years old, that it wasnāt a recent occurrence. I have noticed I havenāt been walking as I have all my life and they say that was due to this. So, Hopefully, Iāll be back to walking my two miles a day before too long.
I want to thank everybody for all the great letters, emails and messages. I truly appreciated them. If it means anything, I already feel much better than I did a month ago and seem to improve as each day goes on. Iāve gotta tell you, This has been very difficult for Susan. She has always been great in times when Iāve been injured or sick. She always knows just what to do and manages everything like a Swiss train. This time she outdid herself. I have never deserved to have her as my life companion and she never fails to remind me of that as the years go by.. She worked so tirelessly throughout all this I couldnāt help but feel guilty! She is my soulmate!
Man, these Golden Years are simply awesome!!!!! Gotta love āem! BTW, hospitals are a great way to lose weight. I had dropped 22 pounds prior to the hospital visit, now Iām down 35 pounds altogether!
Bob
