Hi All, I’ve booked for my surgery, Sept. 1st , 2010. After lots of consideration, doctors visits, tears, fears and now hopefulness the time has come. At some point not that long ago, it hit me that I want to be on the other side of this surgery and the only way to do that is to go through it. I saw Dr. Boachie last Thursay and was able to schedule my appt., but it still isn’t decided how long the fusion will be, whether it will be selective or longer to include both curves. It seems as though my spine has “shifted” and the end point vertebra for the selective fusion isn’t in the midline so the selective fusion might be off the table, so to speak. Then, he had me xray’d with a heel lift and that put the end vertebra in the right spot, but I’m not sure what that means. He wants me to have an MRI as well. I left the appt. feeling very upset and confused. I feel like everytime I go to the doctor there’s something new that I’m unprepared to ask questions about. I must admit I cried for a long while, but I think some of it was just the reality of the surgery hit me. I did email him some of my follow up questions and waiting to hear back. But, I feel good about my decision to go ahead with surgery, regardless of how many levels get fused, there are pros and cons to both. I’ve lived with back pain, hip pain, mild restrictive lung disease, and an increasing physical deformity, the time has come. Now to start to tell people, (you all are some of the 1st) I’ve decided I’m bringing my xrays along with me when I tell people I’m having the surgery. People tend to think this surgery is extreme, which it is, but pictures speak louder than words. I told my inlaws and they began trying to talk me out of surgery again, so I got out the xrays and showed them and they said “you gotta get that taken care of”. I recently told my kids, 10 and 13, and they were very supportive, as they’ve seen the xrays too. My son looked very serious, and I asked him what he was worried about, he asked if I was going to get taller than him again (he just recently passed me in height)
. I know I’ll have a lot of questions over next couple of months, and beyond. I still feel as grateful as I did when I first found this forum, to not feel alone or the only one with this problem. I know we all make different decisions about how to treat scoli., but we have so much in common, it is very comforting.

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