Hi Maria,
Yes, we really don't know what we will wake up with because in surgery, if one thing does not work, they'll use or do something else.
I really didn't know if my surgeon would do the ADR. I was prepared to rethink what I was going to do or get a second opinion. I had all my rebuttal questions prepared.
Don't wait so long that you time yourself out from doing an ADR. Are you getting any treatments for the bone density? I have heard, too, that they will do surgery with mild to moderate facet hypertrophy and then i have read that MRIs may not be the best test to determine facet hypertrophy.
It is very controversial.
So if you were told screws did not have to be used, then they would have done an ALIF and just put in cages?
The dentist chair for me was uncomfortable, when I had them put an extra small pillow in the small of my back, it was better. However, it must have really irritated my back. It is funny, I can be laying down and not much seems wrong with my back and i will get up and walk around and start having back pain. The pain has been increasing and I notice it when the pain pills wear off. I walk slowly and carefully because of the back pain. Now, I get pain lying down, too, and not just with sitting and walking.
I am just hanging in there until the surgery date. It is surprising how fast the pain can increase, but I really should have expected this increase of pain post disco because this is what happened last time.
This time, the dentist didn't completely get the tooth numbed, but he tried. All I was thinking, was, "Come on already, get out of my mouth. Don't be such a d@@n perfectionist." I was also thinking how I could have used some nitric oxide or something. I don't know if I am hypersensitive or what but it takes a load of anesthetic to put my teeth to sleep.
I know when i had my last surgery that my surgeon thought my post-op pain levels were on the high-side. But here they cut your abdomen open, move things, scrape out your disc, rough up the endplates, and then cut into your veterbral bone to put the keels in. Yeah, that hurts.
I know you have to consider your father, but is there anyone else to temporarily look out for him while you have surgery? You say that you can function with the pain but you have to look at physiologically, and not just mentally, what the pain does to your body. Pain is not good for us.
