Tamena
If you are getting 8 hours of sleep, you are doing great! And not surprised that you hurt after you get up. You have been run over by a bulldozer. Its going to hurt. It will get better.
Sigh... when my surgeon told me that it was not going to feel like a got hit by a truck, that it was going to feel like I was hit by a train and hit with every axle, he was right. I was only getting 1 hour or 2 hours of sleep if I was lucky, and was up pretty much all of the time for the 1st 6 weeks. I lost 40# in 40 days and turned grey. They ground out a great deal of bone from my degenerated lumbar levels from the front. It was a heavy duty procedure called partial corpectomy from L1-L5. I have 2 1/2 inches of peek plastic spacers in my back. The screws in my back and pelvis was my second surgery. The guys from work came with a new computer and set it up. Yeah, right. I told them that I couldn’t sit, and was taking 100mg of Percs. “What do you want me to do, drug infused calculations?” That was comical....it wasn’t going to happen. My mind was jacked.....it was a bit much.
But, you know I made it, and it was strange in the fact that my healing came in steps. At 6 weeks, suddenly it felt like I had improved around 20% in one bump. At 4 months, I was sitting here at my desk, posting here, and realized that I had no pain. I couldn’t believe it was something I had to get used to since I had battled scoliosis for decades in major pain. That of course, was great but, I had more pain, on and off. A see-saw recovery, but with more good days than bad as time passed.
I will never forget my recovery, especially those first few weeks. It was a tough time, but I always knew that it was going to take a long time, and always looked forward as if it was a calendar reset. I never thought to myself, “I shouldn’t have done this”. Not even once. Its all about healing and positive thoughts....thinking ahead about your successful recovery, it will come in time.
For pain, I took many hot hot baths....this really worked well for the bone and nerve pain. Ask your surgeon and make sure your incisions are looking ok, you don’t want an incisional infection. Those are no fun.
I had all sorts of people coming to my house in my recovery. I just left the door unlocked, and they would come in....maybe I was laying down and would emit a groan, and they would come back to see if I was ok. It was never really ok, but what could they do? Not much for pain, but they could go and get me a bottle of Magnesium Citrate so I could break up the dam once again. I also used pedialyte to restore electrolytes after purging. It would bring my battery back up from 1 volt to 12 volts.
Sleep is important but I was warned not to stay in bed. Do frequent short outdoor walks every day, drink plenty of water, and breathe deep. Eat yogurt. Watch constipation. Do whatever you can not to get constipated.....!!!!!
Soon you will be past the hard part....and time,even though its going slowly right now, will pass quickly, and you too will look back and think, “I did that”.....with tears and a smile.
Hang in there
Ed
If you are getting 8 hours of sleep, you are doing great! And not surprised that you hurt after you get up. You have been run over by a bulldozer. Its going to hurt. It will get better.
Sigh... when my surgeon told me that it was not going to feel like a got hit by a truck, that it was going to feel like I was hit by a train and hit with every axle, he was right. I was only getting 1 hour or 2 hours of sleep if I was lucky, and was up pretty much all of the time for the 1st 6 weeks. I lost 40# in 40 days and turned grey. They ground out a great deal of bone from my degenerated lumbar levels from the front. It was a heavy duty procedure called partial corpectomy from L1-L5. I have 2 1/2 inches of peek plastic spacers in my back. The screws in my back and pelvis was my second surgery. The guys from work came with a new computer and set it up. Yeah, right. I told them that I couldn’t sit, and was taking 100mg of Percs. “What do you want me to do, drug infused calculations?” That was comical....it wasn’t going to happen. My mind was jacked.....it was a bit much.
But, you know I made it, and it was strange in the fact that my healing came in steps. At 6 weeks, suddenly it felt like I had improved around 20% in one bump. At 4 months, I was sitting here at my desk, posting here, and realized that I had no pain. I couldn’t believe it was something I had to get used to since I had battled scoliosis for decades in major pain. That of course, was great but, I had more pain, on and off. A see-saw recovery, but with more good days than bad as time passed.
I will never forget my recovery, especially those first few weeks. It was a tough time, but I always knew that it was going to take a long time, and always looked forward as if it was a calendar reset. I never thought to myself, “I shouldn’t have done this”. Not even once. Its all about healing and positive thoughts....thinking ahead about your successful recovery, it will come in time.
For pain, I took many hot hot baths....this really worked well for the bone and nerve pain. Ask your surgeon and make sure your incisions are looking ok, you don’t want an incisional infection. Those are no fun.
I had all sorts of people coming to my house in my recovery. I just left the door unlocked, and they would come in....maybe I was laying down and would emit a groan, and they would come back to see if I was ok. It was never really ok, but what could they do? Not much for pain, but they could go and get me a bottle of Magnesium Citrate so I could break up the dam once again. I also used pedialyte to restore electrolytes after purging. It would bring my battery back up from 1 volt to 12 volts.
Sleep is important but I was warned not to stay in bed. Do frequent short outdoor walks every day, drink plenty of water, and breathe deep. Eat yogurt. Watch constipation. Do whatever you can not to get constipated.....!!!!!
Soon you will be past the hard part....and time,even though its going slowly right now, will pass quickly, and you too will look back and think, “I did that”.....with tears and a smile.
Hang in there
Ed
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