I have read the posts on this forum several times per day after I came home from the hosp. I've only posted once, post-surg, due to pain.
On a very happy note, I am feeling sooo much better, back-wise. I do, on occasion, have a painful, burning area just to the left of the highest point of my fusion. Lidocaine patches fix the problem right up.
I slept in my own bed last night - I had been sleeping on the couch, which was fixed up with an arrangement of topper and pillows. Being back in my own bed is one of those little milestones that just make my day!
One day shy of my 2 week mark, I turned the corner - just like so many of you said I would. For 2 days, I decreased my narcs a little more with every dose, and was feeling very optimistic. Then the pain in my right thoracic area started to increase gradually, and by the 4th day of this INCREASE in pain, I was in a lot of pain, and very short of breath. Long story short, I had a pleural effusion, was admitted, had a thoracentesis a week ago Sat (they drained just under 2 liters) and was discharged. But, my post-thoracentesis x-ray still looked a lot like my pre-thor one. So, admitted again on Fri. They put in a chest tube and immediately got about 1 liter. I stayed for the weekend - they took the chest tube out yesterday morning. I have another appt w/the thoracic doc on Wed. I still have almost zero breath sounds in my right lung. It's too early to know what the long-term ramifications of that are, but I'll worry about that later. This weekend was hell - esp for the 15 hrs that, even with Oxycodone AND Dilaudid, I was still in great pain.
My spirits are great - I'm optimisitc, grateful and cheerful. Thanks to all that I learned from this forum, I knew to expect complications and not get discouraged by them.
On a very happy note, I am feeling sooo much better, back-wise. I do, on occasion, have a painful, burning area just to the left of the highest point of my fusion. Lidocaine patches fix the problem right up.
I slept in my own bed last night - I had been sleeping on the couch, which was fixed up with an arrangement of topper and pillows. Being back in my own bed is one of those little milestones that just make my day!
One day shy of my 2 week mark, I turned the corner - just like so many of you said I would. For 2 days, I decreased my narcs a little more with every dose, and was feeling very optimistic. Then the pain in my right thoracic area started to increase gradually, and by the 4th day of this INCREASE in pain, I was in a lot of pain, and very short of breath. Long story short, I had a pleural effusion, was admitted, had a thoracentesis a week ago Sat (they drained just under 2 liters) and was discharged. But, my post-thoracentesis x-ray still looked a lot like my pre-thor one. So, admitted again on Fri. They put in a chest tube and immediately got about 1 liter. I stayed for the weekend - they took the chest tube out yesterday morning. I have another appt w/the thoracic doc on Wed. I still have almost zero breath sounds in my right lung. It's too early to know what the long-term ramifications of that are, but I'll worry about that later. This weekend was hell - esp for the 15 hrs that, even with Oxycodone AND Dilaudid, I was still in great pain.
My spirits are great - I'm optimisitc, grateful and cheerful. Thanks to all that I learned from this forum, I knew to expect complications and not get discouraged by them.
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