TLIF - Positive thoughts needed

I try not to post too many negative things on any site – there’s way too much of that.   And while this post isn’t necessarily negative, it’s not my usual kind of post.  If you’ve seen my recent social networking posts this week you know that I haven’t been sleeping well.  The reason I haven’t been sleeping is because I can’t stop thinking about my upcoming back surgery.  Yep, I said back surgery. 

I’ve been dealing with some back and hip issues for several years now.  I’m not fond of taking pain pills, and have had to take more than I would like to deal with it.  A few years ago I went to one of the orthopedic doctors here in town and was told I had trigger points.  The treatment was trigger point injections and pain pills. Time passed.  Sometimes things were better, sometimes things were worse.  I went back to the same doctor.  I had x-rays and an MRI, was told they didn’t show anything other than arthritis (even though they had about 10 different diagnoses listed on their notes which I obtained later) and was referred to the Pain Clinic.  I went to the Pain Clinic and made it very clear that I was not interested in treating this problem with pain pills indefinetly and needed to know what the problem was so it could be fixed.  More tests were done.  More injections.  More pain pills. More physical therapy. More time passed of me just dealing with it.

Fast forward…. I decided to make a lifestyle change and get healthy and hopefully take care of this back issue at the same time.  Being overweight had to be the problem, right?  I stopped drinking soda, limited my sugar intake, practiced portion control, and started exercising.  Lots of changes started happening with my body.  I’ve lost over 50 pounds…went down several sizes….dropped my cholesterol down to normal levels…and feel better overall.  BUT, my back continued to get worse.  There was no way I was going back to the doctors I had already been too so I started researching.  

After lots of research I decided to pay a visit to Dr. Rohan Jr at Panama City Spine.  Before my first visit I gave him copies of all of my records and he ordered more x-rays.  During the first visit he walked into the room with an image in his hand and asked me if I knew I had a bulging disk and pinched nerve since I didn’t mention it on my paperwork?  Well, no….no, I didn’t!!!  He showed me an image from the MRI completed by the first doctor I mentioned…the one who said I may have to just deal with it and sent me to the pain clinic.  Dr. Rohan Jr ordered a new MRI and more x-rays in several different positions then we sat down and discussed a treatment plan.  The MRI and x-rays confirmed the bulging disk and pinched nerve (which is much worse now than it was in the previous MRI) - Spondylololisthesis (a spinal disorder where a vertebra slips onto the vertebra below it – in my case it’s L4 and L5), facet degeneration, disk degeneration, and minor scoliosis.  Pretty obvious why I’ve been in so much pain for so long.  I’ve already done pretty much every least restrictive treatment…so my options are pretty limited: continue to take more and more pain pills (which I’m not willing to do) or surgery.  Surgery it is.

Friday morning (01/27/2017) I will be having back surgery at Gulf Coast Medical Center.  The type of surgery is called Transforaminal Lumbar Interbody Fusion (TLIF).  The surgery will provide lumbar decompression & instrumented fusion with bone graft substitute.    You can watch the video attached to get a better idea of how it’s done. Sounds like fun huh?  Spine-health.com - video/tlif  

While I’m fine with my decision to go ahead with the surgery, I can’t help but to be pretty nervous about it – especially about the recovery portion.  There will be quite some time where I will not be able to bend, lift, or twist (so the fusion will work).  And I’m expecting quite a bit of surgical pain.  How can there not be when screws and rods are placed in your bones.  But, I have pretty high pain tolerance so I’m hoping for the best.  Of course that high pain tolerance also makes it hard to treat the pain.  I have educated myself the best I can on the surgery and recovery.  I’ve read many, many articles on it and watched countless videos of previous patients and the surgery itself. We’ve made a few changes at the house to meet my needs after the surgery, and will probably make some more over the next few days.  I’m as ready as I’m going to be.

I have to be at the hospital at 5am.  Maybe I’ll be able to sleep some before then, but it’s guaranteed I’ll sleep some on Friday…LOL.  I’m not sure what time the surgery will be but I assume around 6:30am or 7am.  The doctor said the surgery will take about 3 hours and I will be in the hospital 2-3 days.  I’ll post as I can and keep everyone updated.  You know this won’t keep me off social media.  Any positive thoughts you can send my way will be greatly appreciated.  Ron’s way too since he will have to take care of me.