When I could no longer walk, I had my first back surgery to fuse lumbar verterbrae (L) 2, 3, and 4. I told the doctors something was still very wrong, but they didn't listen to me until they were taking my blood pressure to release me, and it was 50/30! I had to have my SECOND back surgery to find the internal bleeding. This was in 2001.
The pain was not significantly diminished, so I saw I doc in 2002, who recommended the hardware be removed. Back surgery number 3.
I was a teacher, by the way, and on June 20, 2003, (when I was a normal weight), my chair had rotted out in the middle where the wheels join the seat, and it broke. I was thrown to the cement floor. Three vertebrae above my fusion and one below slipped out of place. I couldn't walk again.
It took me a long time to get to the surgeon this time, because it was a work comp case. Every month I couldn't move, I was gaining 10 lbs a month. I was soon obese. I was moving toward having spine surgery, but as my weight crept up, I knew I wouldn't be able to walk to rehabilitate with this weight on.
So, I heard about Dr. Fobi and the Fobi pouch (RNY with a band to limit food intake). I went to see him, and asked if he could help me. He said, "Yes, that 100 lbs is killing you as much as her 400 lbs is killing her." Thank God for Dr. Fobi, because he also led me to my back surgeon, who is world renowned for his traumatic spine surgery.
I was going to have to have it fused from T-7 (thoracic) to S-1 (Sacrum) which is TWELVE levels of the spine. Dr Anand, however, said my biggest problem was that when the spine fused on it's own, it was fused wrong, and he would need to re-break my back to get a good result. So, he did! And a miracle happened. Swoosh! All of the slipped vertebrae laid down in a perfect S curve, with L3, the broken vertebrae, below the rest. Dr. Anand stepped back and said, WHOA, I didn't do that. How can I keep it that way? So he worked using screws and rods to fuse only 5 LEVELS, L1-L5, with the third one still below. I'm an inch shorter now! LOL. That was surgery 4, September 2004.
In July, 2005, I was released back to work. Then a horrible thing happened. On August 20, 2005, my daughter was visiting my brother in Ohio. Her father and my mother were behind them going to a party for her other Uncle. My brother fell asleep at the wheel of his car. Shannon shouted at him to wake up. He swung the car back into his lane from the oncoming traffic, but the other driver was swinging back from avoiding him, and they hit, head on, going about 50 mph. Shannon wrapped herself around her cousins, ages 5 and 6, and shouted, "God, take me, not them." She was snapped in half upon the force of the impact, and instantly was paralyzed from the waist down. It truly, truly SUCKS. I will probably never get over the pain.
In January of 2006, I was helping her transfer from her wheelchair to our car, and I caught her when she fell, and felt an EXCRUTIATING pain in my neck. MRI revealed a bony spur from arthritis of the back had grown into my spinal cord at C-3 (cervical). I had to have surgery on April 4, 2006, to remove the spur, cut away a lot of my bone to decompress the cord; I had 4 disks removed and replaced with a metal plate, and, finally, they fused 5 levels of my neck, C-3 through T1.
I haven't been fusing well, and most recently that was attributed to the screws proximity to my vertebral artery, but surgeon says no. That brings you up to date. I am FINALLY in physical therapy from that April, 2006 FIFTH back surgery. Finally I'm getting out of bed more. However, I am very limited in what I can do, and I tire very easily.
