A warning from my sciatic nerve

[apocrypha]

Bummer Signe :(  Glad the surgery worked for her though. It does seem to me that they decide to treat these things way too late. If I'd been put on the surgical waiting list right after they saw the Rorschach blot in my MRI then I'd only have another month to wait instead of four.

And there's a familial link for me too - my dad had pretty much the *exact* same problem about 8 years ago. He had to wait over a YEAR for surgery though, which is just batshit fucking insane.

[apocrypha]

So, surgery tomorrow. Costing us ~ £8000 (impossible to get an actual quote from these fuckers) but relatives are helping with the cost. My physio and a couple of the consultants I'd seen had intimated that another 4 month wait for surgery would significantly increase my risk of developing permanent nerve damage so we've just gone private.

Having a hemiotomy and a decompression, which basically seems to involve drilling a chunk of spine off so they can get at the insides, cutting the protruding bits off of the prolapsed disc and then fishing all the bits of ruptured disc out and away from the sciatic nerves. There's a few things that can go wrong but all in all a complete success is about 80% likely. About a 5-8% chance of serious failure but I'm trying not to think about that 

Hopefully I'll be out of hospital by Wednesday and hopefully I'll finally be free of all this pain! 

[schild]

You are a braver man than I.

[stray]

Good luck, sir 

I can't even imagine the pain, but I hope it relieves you of all of that bullshit. 5-8% failure sounds pretty damn good!

[schild]

Good luck, sir 

I can't even imagine the pain, but I hope it relieves you of all of that bullshit. 5-8% failure sounds pretty damn good!

We don't know what Failure means. Is it like rolling a zero or is it like just not doing any damage. >_>

[apocrypha]

Failure in this case means worse than I am now. Small (very small) possibility of permanent incontinence and impotence and inability to use my leg ever again. But that's really, really worst case scenario. Like 1:10,000 chance. And of course there's a similarly tiny chance that I'll just die under general anaesthetic, but worrying about those kind of tiny chances is like being scared of crossing the road and being hit by meteorites.

Most of the 5-8% is made up of varying degrees of nerve damage which would mean continued pain and further operations. AFAIK. Not an expert and this is just what I've been able to glean from Q&A's with assorted surgeons etc.

[Signe]

Good luck!     I'm very nearly almost positively sure you will be perfectly fine without having to worry about squirting the wrong stuff and AT the wrong time. 

Geez.  Can't some mod just go and fix my posts?  I think you all enjoy it when I screw them up.  Lazy fuckers.

Edit by Trippy: yes we are

[Lantyssa]

Good luck, apocrypha.

[Engels]

Good luck!

[apocrypha]

Thankyou folks    Back in a few days 

[Bunk]

We'll all be here waiting for you. Get well.

[WayAbvPar]

Thinking good thoughts for ya apoc.

I opened this thread to bitch about my aching back, but quickly realized that I was effectively crying about a hangnail compared to a severed thumb, so I will just STFU. Also, Vicodin is magic stuff. My wife had a few left over from her postpartum recovery, and I helped myself to one. Wow.

[Abagadro]

Good luck!

[Rasix]

From someone that's had major back surgery: good luck.  Hope your stay is shorter than mine was. Was not fun.

[Azazel]

Fuck. Good luck man. Hope it goes/went well. 

[Jimbo]

Thinking good thoughts for ya apoc.

I opened this thread to bitch about my aching back, but quickly realized that I was effectively crying about a hangnail compared to a severed thumb, so I will just STFU. Also, Vicodin is magic stuff. My wife had a few left over from her postpartum recovery, and I helped myself to one. Wow.

OMG! Drink a boat load of water and bulk up on fiber.  If you are not used to narcotics, the opium induced constipation is hell!  They work great to get rid of the pain, but then you're screaming in the bathroom later on in the week.

Oh and good luck apocrypha!

[Merusk]

I'd wish you good luck but you've already had it done or else you wouldn't be reading this.

So speedy recovery and welcome back!

[apocrypha]

Thankyou everyone 

2nd attempt at replying - first reply got eaten by Firefox while the morphine-induced constipation that Jimbo alluded to ended suddenly and urgently! TMI I know, sorry! 

Anyway, I'm home, I'm alive and the 6 months of leg pain seems to be 90% gone! Woohoo! Still some numbness down there but that's to be expected and it'll be a couple of weeks at least until we're certain how it went, but early indications are awesome.

Wish I'd read your post before I went in Jimbo, cos you were bang on! They gave me a fair amount of morphine, about 200mg over 24 hours I think (from a glance at my notes) and it did everything you said it would, plus crashed my BP quite impressively. Went down to under 80/something for quite a long time so they had me on constant monitoring and a drip until it came back up over 100.

Got a tiny little wound in my back and a huge bald patch on my leg from the electrosurgery and a really sore epiglottis from being intubated. But I can walk! I can sit (for short periods)! And I had a long, detailed conversation with a young hot physiotherapist girl about what kind of sex I could indulge in 

I think I've got a slow, gentle recovery ahead of me but right now I feel fucking awesome and indescribably happy that the pain is gone 

Oh and general anaesthetics are weird! My brother had one about 6 weeks ago for a shoulder injury fixing and when he came out of it he was shouting and angry (his teacher mode kicking in). When I came round from mine I was all emotional and tearful! Heads and drugs are funny 

Thankyou all again for the happy thoughts & wishes 

[Trippy]

\o/

[Sky]

Good for you, Apoc. So glad you acted on it and everything went well.

My mother is still just being a trooper and living with the pain. She's so damned stubborn.

Did you get the PT chick's digits? 

[Engels]

Yay Apoc! As someone who had an close relative go through this, I know how freakin scary it can be, so I'm glad you weathered it without too much emotional trauma.

Sky, show your mom this thread already.

[schild]

Grats!

[apocrypha]

Did you get the PT chick's digits? 

No but i'll look her up on StalkerBook later 

[Rasix]

That didn't sound so bad pffft.  Glad everything went well.

[LK]

Oh noooes. I woke up this morning with ze back pain. :(

The first thing I did was request a new chair for my job.

[WayAbvPar]

If you end up going to to doctor and don't use your entire prescription of pain medication, I offer a low cost Vicodin disposal service. All you need to do is pay for the shipping.

[MisterNoisy]

Good to hear it all turned out well. :)

[apocrypha]

Guys, if you're getting back pain please please please look into it. Really, if I'd looked into mine years ago it would have saved me from all this.

And today I have a big ulcer on my epiglottis and raging diarrhea as a result of intubation and all the morphine respectively. Still better than the leg pain 

[Lantyssa]

They didn't make you take a swiffer beforehand?  (Lucky if so.  I still reflexively gag when thinking about the taste.)

[LK]

I have a personal chiropracter that I see. Thankfully he is accessible enough that I will see him in the next day or two.

But let me tell you: Last night I slept in the most correct position possible and learned to relax my body. The experience was a bit amazing, trying to self-induce myself to stop stressing about things and to relax.

[apocrypha]

What's a swiffer? I seem to remember the nurse giving me the midnight buttock morphine shot saying something about including something else in it to counteract the nausea but I was a bit out of it...

[Sky]

Last night I slept in the most correct position possible and learned to relax my body. The experience was a bit amazing, trying to self-induce myself to stop stressing about things and to relax.

Pre-sleep meditation, and meditation in general, is an amazing boon that a lot of people either don't know about or don't partake in. I highly recommend it.

[Nebu]

I have a personal chiropracter that I see. Thankfully he is accessible enough that I will see him in the next day or two.

Must ... resist... urge... to... comment... on... chiropractors... 

[Lantyssa]

What's a swiffer? I seem to remember the nurse giving me the midnight buttock morphine shot saying something about including something else in it to counteract the nausea but I was a bit out of it...

The most foul tasting gunk imaginable meant to empty your bowls prior to a surgery.

I only managed to down half the bottle.  Attempts at the rest were forcibly rejected by my body convulsing and gagging.  That was two years ago.  I've gagged twice from thinking about it while writing this up.

[Signe]

I have a personal chiropracter that I see. Thankfully he is accessible enough that I will see him in the next day or two.

Must ... resist... urge... to... comment... on... chiropractors... 

They crack me up!