[tisury]

Hello to everyone. Well, I think I am finally on the road to recovery now. Dr. Bertagnoli did a 2 level Prodisc surgery above my existing one level that was done here in the US in Feb 2004. My surgery was on May 22 (Tues) and I was discharged Sat afternoon. Even though my bone density test were okay, Dr. B ended up having to do vertobroplasty (Cortoss) because the bones were softer than expected. Thank God I was here in Germany where this was available. I cant say enough about Dr. Bertagnoli and the Pro Spine staff. Dr. B is the most wonderfully skilled, compassionate, yet down to earth doctor I have ever met. I am so glad I made the decision to come over to him. If he can't fix me, no one can. At home, their opinion was keep me on very high levels of pain meds, possibly spinal cord stimulator and that was it. They had no hope for me. Thank heavens I didn't give up on me as easily as they did.


Time will tell whether I am a success or not, but I have a good feeling about this. I have quite a bit of pain yet, but this is to be expected. The good news is that a lot of it is DIFFERENT........so probably from the stretching to get the two discs in. I walk a lot and this seems to help keep the pain under control. I am on A LOT LESS meds already than I was presurgery. Fentanyl was dropped from 100 mcg every other day to 50 mcg every third day. Had some issues for a day and half with withdrawal which was kind of ugly, but doing well now on this dose. Some of the problem was withdrawal, some of it was from the amount of anesthesia they needed for me since I was on such high levels of narcotic pain meds. I am still using percocet, but not even as much as I am allowed to take. All good signs............I just pray it continues to improve with each day.

Straubing and Germany are beautiful. Have been able to see a few things. Everyone here at the Romerhof Hotel are just so fantastic and helpful !!! Same with St. Elisabeth Hospital in Straubing. There is some language barrier, but if they didnt understand me, they found someone who did. And everyone was so friendly and helpful.

Well, it is supposed to rain most of this week that we will be here yet (Fly out on Friday), so going to go do a little sightseeing.

Mark, it was really good to get a chance to meet you after all these years !
Thanks so much for stopping in to visit me. Maybe some day I will get out to one of your ADR "parties" out there in California. My husband will be going out there for business in a few months, but I doubt that I will be up to the trip by then. (Never know though)

A big thanks to everyone and for all the good wishes sent via email.

Susan