Under the Knife

A few weeks ago (around March 14th or so) I woke up with a sore left shoulder.  Not a big deal, figured I slept on it wrong and put some Icy Hot on it and off I went.  Cut forward a few days and the shoulder still hurts.  No biggie, just more of a pull then I thought.  Finally cut to Tuesday the 19th.  Went to drop Xander off at my parents house for Spring Break and my mom gets a little worried because the pain has dropped down from my shoulder into my upper arm and elbow.  She seemed to think it could be something wrong with my heart and recommended seeing my doctor.  Once again I shrugged it off.  Paula wanted to take me to the ER but I told her all they would do is give me some pain medication and send me to my regular doctor.  Yes I am good at ignoring all the warning signs, but I was also convinced it was just a really bad muscle pull.

Anyway I made a deal with Paula that if the shoulder was not better on Wednesday evening we could go to the doc-in-the-box at the bottom of our street and let them take a look at me.  For the most part they ARE my regular doctor and I would rather pay them then an ER.  I woke up Wednesday and yep, still sore so told Paula we would go after work.  During work more symptoms popped up - numbness in the arm, pain in the elbow and wrist - so that now I was getting a little worried.  We stopped at the doc and they had this little sign "Please tell us if you are experiencing chest pains, numbness in the arm or shoulder etc..." basically if you might die let us know so we can see you first.  Paula made sure we told them.  They brought me back and after running a few cursory tests...they sent me to the ER.

Since I work at UAB we can go to their emergency room much cheaper than at any other hospital in the area so off we went.  We skipped dinner (big mistake as you will see), neither of us was hungry because of worry.  Anyway we get to UAB's ER and check in about 7.  We go through all the check in procedures, and are back in an exam room about 9:30.  They run a few more tests, tell me they want chest X-Rays, an EKG and an MRI before moving forward.  I turned to Paula and said "we should have eaten".

X-Rays
The X-Rays were basic enough, lots of film of my chest, arm, shoulder, neck, you name it.  The only downside of the X-Rays were they guaranteed we would be there until at least midnight because there was a nice sign in the exam room clearly stating if you had to have X-Rays taken there was a 2 hour process involved in reading them.

EKG
I guess my biggest surprise of the tests was the EKG.  I assumed they would wire you up and leave you that way for a while to check you out over a period of time.  I mean how can they figure out an irregular heart beat unless they test for a while.  But no.  The test lasts 10 seconds - it took longer to wire me up.  The nurse came in, hooked up the 5-10 wires necessary and counted to 10 then started disconnecting everything.  Strangest thing I had ever been involved with.

MRI
This is the one I had been dreading.  I am not a small person and unless it was an "Open MRI" I just was not sure how I would fit in the darn thing.  Well apparently they had just expanded the width of the machine to fit in us larger individuals so I made out o.k.  Of course the second problem with these tests is you are not allowed to move...which means as soon as they say that you start getting itches everywhere.  The MRI tended to focus on my neck more than my chest so I was at least hopeful that this meant my heart tests went O.K. but it also meant another 2 hour wait for radiology to read them.

Side Note: Yes I do intend to try and get a copy of my MRI's so I can import them into our 3-D system.  I am weird that way...plus I think that will be fun.

Final Verdict
Finally after all the tests and as 3-4 AM was fast approaching the doctor came in.  The problem I was having was a bulging disk between my C6 and C7 vertebra pressing on my spinal column and particularly a nerve going down my arm to my elbow and wrist.  The rest of the bad news was that since I had strength loss in the hand and was having some other issues with the arm both he, and the head of the department, were recommending surgery rather than just outpatient physical therapy.   When two doctors tell you that you need surgery you go ahead and do it, so they went ahead and admitted me and scheduled the surgery for Thursday afternoon.  This meant no food for me until after surgery so no chance to even get a snack or some breakfast.  In addition, the hospital was full so I could not even get to a real room until after surgery.  So Paula and I shared a gurney in the ER until about 8 when they moved us to another area of the ER.  My family arrived some time around 11 or so and about 1 they moved me up to Pre-Op to check over everything.

The Surgery
The surgery was supposed to last about 3 hours - of which an hour was supposed to be prep and cleanup.  The procedure is pretty straight forward, they remove the disk that is inflamed, cleaning out all the little bits and pieces, then they add some bone (sometimes from a graft, mine was actually from a cadaver) and a plate to help fuse the two vertebra together.  I would lose some movement in my neck but the pros outweighed the cons.  Interesting thing is that they go through the front of your neck rather than the back to avoid infections, but this leads to other issues.  Namely the esophagus and having to ..well go through your whole neck to get to the problem.  Apparently my surgery took 4 hours - by this time I had lost all sense of time so you could have told me it took 24 hours and I would not have been able to contradict you.  The reason for the longer than expected surgery ties back to my size.  The doctor apparently came out after 3 hours to reassure the family that everything was ok and it was not being delayed because of complications.  His explanation was that my neck bones were bigger than most peoples backbones so the problem was just pure surface area.

Surgery finished and I spent most of the rest of Thursday and Friday morning in pain.  I could not move without hurting and I definitely could not swallow.  In fact it wasn't until Saturday or Sunday that I could eat more than broth.  I am sure I lost a few pounds but not a diet plan I would recommend.

Recovery
The typical recovery time for the surgery is apparently 2 weeks home in bed and then after 4 weeks you start physical therapy.  I doubt I will make it all two weeks - I am going stir crazy just sitting around the house.  I am not as strong as I usually am and I still have some problems - swallowing is still a bit sore and for some reason my sciatica has been acting up almost like it is mad I took care of the other end of the spinal column rather than clearing HIS issues up.  Add to that the fact that I am missing class in addition to work and you can say I am a little pecking to get back to work.  I will probably take Monday and Tuesday off this week to make sure everything is good to go, then start back Wednesday.  It is only 3 days early from the 2 week mandate and I don't think the doctor will have TOO big of a problem with it.