Last week on the Tuesday, May 9th I had a discectomy done at T1-T2 to remove a herniation that was pressing on a nerve and causing numbness and pain in my right shoulder, down my right arm into my hand, my armpit and around to my pec. The surgery was done by Dr. Christopher Baker who happens to be the same doctor that did my L5-S1 discectomy 5 years ago. I didn't get to speak to him much before the surgery, but he did speak to my wife after the surgery while I was still in recovery. This is an abbreviation on that conversation:
The surgery went well and took approximately 1.5 hours. The herniation was taken care of, but we found that a lot of the disc tissue had already begun to calcify so we let it be and will let it take it's course which is basically fusion of T1 & T2 sometime down the line. The bone spurs were cleaned out and nerve paths were opened up to alleviate some of the pressure being placed on the nerves which should help with the numbness and loss of strength. However, the impingement was great enough that it will take some time for "normal" strength and feeling to return and he will have to be patient with it. Recovery from this surgery will take longer than it did with his back. (there was no specific number of weeks or months provided)
I woke up from surgery to hear the nurses telling my wife they were moving me to my room upstairs which was a shock to me because this was supposed to be an outpatient surgery. I began babbling about wanting to go home and not wanting to stay in the hospital. Kim calmed me down some and when we got to my room she explained that my blood pressure had gotten pretty high during the surgery and they had to give me some medication to get it down and under control. They kept me over night for observation, but I had no other incidents and kept telling the nurses, and whomever would listen, that I was good to go and ready to head home. No one listened and I had to stay. I did get to have Dilaudid hooked up to a pump so I could self medicate so I took advantage of that.
During my stay we found that I had one more IV than I started with and a bunch more needle marks in my arms as well as a large amount of blood smeared on my right wrist area. I can only assume that since there was a nurse anesthetist student in the surgery room with me that I became a pin cushion for her. My right wrist is still bruised from whatever she did and it's a week later.
The finally released me after all the docs came by to see me on Wednesday. I was in a good amount of pain at the incision site so they sent me home with soma and dilaudid pills to take for the next few days. The first couple of days at home were filled with very little sleep since it hurt to move and would wake me up every time I tried to do so. I ended up sleeping in my recliner where I'd get a couple of hours of sleep at a time, but at least I was sleeping. My daughter, Lynsey, stayed home from school on Thursday to make sure I was looked after and it seemed like every time I woke up she was handing me another pill to take. LOL I think I took 4 naps that consisted of me sleeping 8 hours of the day so she did a good job of keeping me doped up. She was a sweetheart, though. She made me a PB&J sandwich for lunch and would bring me my drink and such. I love and appreciate her more than she knows.
A week later and I have to say I am still having tingling sensations and burning in my back even though it's much less than before. I know it's supposed to go away later since nerves are funny things, but I'm not happy with the situation right now and expected it to be much better. We shall see what happens in the coming weeks and I'll keep my fingers crossed, but it looks like it'll be 6-7 more weeks before the doc will give me an all clear. I see him next Monday so I'll have more info then.
One other thing I found as I was changing to head home....
we took my compression socks off and the grippy socks the hospital gives you to find I had a large amount of surgical tape wrapped around my right ankle and heel. No needle marks or blood, but just tape wrapped around my heel area....no clue why it was there.
4 days post op.