Quote Originally Posted by birdgirl73
PharmaCan, thanks so much for your posts and the wonderful advice!

I think they're going to end up fusing C5 - 7 on me, after they do the anterior discectomy and also a cervical foramenotomy, which must be the part in which they widen out the path for the spinal colum and the projecting nerves through that section. They're using bone bank/donor bone on me, too. Just one less thing to have to heal from instead of also having a hip incision, too, for bone harvesting. They're using a reinforcing titanium plate to help brace the fusion.

I have more questions for you, if that's OK. Did you have to wear your cervical collar to sleep in? Was it hard to adjust to? Also, tell me about what they do to keep your esophagus open during the surgery. I've wondered about that. I know they'll have a tube in my trachea to breathe for me, but I've been wondering how they open you up from the front of your neck, get in there and do all that delicate work with retractors and still keep your esophagus open on one side and your carotid on the other. I wish I could see the whole procedure on video, to be honest. I've heard that with swelling and pain in the first two or three post-op days, swallowing can be a challenge. My surgery's not going to take 9 hours. The surgeon said it'd be about 3.

That's very reassuring to me that your symptoms were relieved so quickly and that you stopped pain meds so quickly. I don't get much help from traditional narcotic pain meds, but I do like NSAIDs such IV toradol or oral ibuprofen. Did you regain any of your lost neurological ground afterwards? I'm hoping the numbness and tingling will stop in my shoulders and that the muscle weakness will be reversible. I'd also like the fatigue to go away. The neurosurgeon said what comes back will be icing on the cake and cautioned that the surgery's intent is to stop the progression of spinal damage.

I can't tell you how much I appreciate talking to someone else who's had similar work done in a similar area. And it is so reassuring to read that muscle cramps were part of your symptoms, too. It was that symptom, along with the muscle weakness and slight motor difficulties, that I think led that one surgeon to say he thought I was at the beginnings of ALS. Fortunately two ohter surgeons concurred on the stenosis/spondylosis problem and said this can be fixed.
Birdgirl - I'm glad you find the information helpful and encouraging. I'll try to answer your questions as best I can.

Pain meds - I never took pain meds prior to the surgery. Pain meds are a short road to hell and I've been there, done that. That being said, if the surgey had not removed the pain I was prepared to move to a country where I could get heroin without serious legal ramifications because the attitude of the medical industry in this country towards pain treatment sucks big time. (In all defference to your chosen profession, it's time for the AMA to tell the gov't to get the fuck out of their ballywick.) ...but I digress.

Your esophagus - This is truly amazing, you have to see your X-rays. OK - first thing the surgeon does is stick a pin through one of your vertabra, then X-ray it. (Then, when they have you open they know which vertabra is which.) Then they put big (thick) sutures around your esophagus, 6 - 8 sutures as I recall, then they pull your esophagus to the side and secure the sutures to a holding device. This looks so cool on an X-ray, at least I thought so. Anyway, that's how they get your esophagus out of the way. I guess they have a breathing tube down the esophagus because I didn't have any kind of incision for a tracheotomy.

Swallowing, pain and swelling - I didn't have a lot of pain from the surgery. I enjoyed the push-button pain meds the first day post-op. But I soon learned that that darn button is more for a placebo affect than it is for actually dispensing medication and if I wasn't gonna get high then I couldn't see having the IV strapping me to the bed. Truly, BG, I don't remember very much pain post op. Maybe it was because so very much pain had suddenly stopped that I just didn't notice it - or maybe it just didn't hurt that much.

Swallowing - This can actually be kinda humorous, as long as you don't panic when a problem arises. I'm sure you know that swallowing is accomplished by the progressive contraction and relaxing of muscles that force the food down your throat. Well, in my case, one little section of the muscles didn't contract properly, so food would sometimes go part way down my throat and, not get stuck, but just not move. This was not something that happened every time I swallowed. Everything seemed to be working properly on either side of the problem area so most food was forced down by the food following it through the throat. When somehing did occasionally get stuck, a drink of water, or even another bite of food, would force it right down. Eventually, this went away and everything is back to normal.

Three hours for the surgery? Yeah, right. I'll put that right up there with, "Don't worry, you can't get pregnant from only having sex one time." LOL. I don't know how quickly the surgical teams move, but it has to take at least 1 1/2 hours just to get you set up and opened up. Remember the test you took where they hooked electrodes to your fingers and toes and measured nerve response? They have you hooked up to that equipment for the entire surgery, as a moniter for mistakes. It takes what, 30 - 45 minutes just to hook you up to that machine and calibrate it? Additionally, you will have two completely seperate and distinct surgical teams. An orthopaedic team and a neuro team. So ortho comes in and opens you up and moves everything out of the way to access your spine then drills out the front of your vertabra (it's now horseshoe shaped, open in front). Then the neurosurgeon has to do his/her thing then ortho has to put you all back together... Three hours? Maybe, but I doubt it. Anyway, you're asleep, what the hell do you care? LOL

The neck brace - well, there's a down side to everything and the neck brace is the really bad news in this scenario. You wear it 24/7, for months on end. You can only sleep on your back. You are going to find that you have a tendancy to want to wiggle around in the brace and push your chin down towards your chest because it feels good to strectch the muscles on the back of your neck. Don't do it!!!! I did and it moved the screws a little - which is a little more than I preferred. When your neck gets sore, take off the back of the brace, support your neck and head with the front of the brace and have your husband massage your neck gently. The less you move your neck during recovery, the more aligned everything will remain.

My surgeons tried to talk me out of having the surgery right up until the day I checked into the hospital. It's a sad fact of American medicine, due to the litigious nature of our society, that doctors are forced to avoid the discussion of the possible benefits of any proceedure, and that they must often appear to discourage having a proceedure just to cover their asses against lawsuits. But think about it, the pressure is going to be off your spinal cord. How could that do anything but help?

One last thing, and this is very important. After your brace comes off, in order to ensure that your neck will function properly in the future, you should have oral sex at least three or four times a day for a minimum of six weeks. I know this will be hard on your husband (no pun intended), but he will just have to be stoic about it.

Best of luck!!!