The Spine Surgery

A Story of Pain

I had spine surgery in June of 2014. It was one of the most awful experiences of my life. I lost the use of my hands, couldn’t go to the bathroom for three days, couldn’t stand for two days, and regularly was partially paralyzed.

Let’s go back like Tarantino. How did it begin?

The setting is my house around January of 2012. I began having lower back pain, something I never had before. Think bottom of the tailbone into the buttocks. After gentle stretching and toughening up, I went to the doctor. He was unsure but recommended swimming. I swam once the weather got warmer. Over time, the pain went away. I believe it was sciatica. One stretch that pulls the glutes just right was heavenly.

That’s not the end.

The next year, on New Years, around January 2, 2013, I got very sick. I wasn’t doing any crazy partying. I was in bed all day from feeling ill. That night, I vomited violently into a bowl. Beginning the next day, I had constant pain in my lower back. It ached, was dull, throbbed, and never left. Like a good soldier raised by Boomers in the 90s, I kept my mouth shut. There was no reason to make it weird or make everyone else miserable.

After I had to take time off work, about 90 days later, I went to the doctor. She told me how strong the lumbar is, how it can get irritated, but let’s get an Xray just to be sure. Cross our i’s and dot our t’s.

I received a call from her two days later. Her tone changed completely and told me to return to the office. Upon arrival, there was no intro or small talk. “You have a pars defect stress fracture.” A what? She wrote to me to get an MRI to verify as well as spine doctors and orthos.

After the MRI, I saw the ortho. He said it was “Textbook Pars.” It’s caused when there is a stress fracture in the spine vertebrae from when you were a kid, and it never healed. Before the age of 18, it can be “fixed” with a Shuck procedure. After that, it’s a spinal fusion. I was 27. He asked about childhood injuries. It took me a minute to recall them:

Tonsillectomy

Appendectomy

Broken arm, three times

Concussion, three times

Head split open, twice

C5 bone bruise

Stitches or staples, lost count

Patellar debridement

Achilles tear

Tendonitis in feet, legs, and arms

Bursitis in arm

“But what about injuries you didn’t get at the time? Other hospitalizations or ER visits?”

Migraines

Pneumonia

Mono

Asthma

Fell out of my friend’s treehouse on my back and couldn’t get up

Dropped off a climbing wall and landed on my butt

“Wait, what?”

I also played sports through injuries, including football. I had unknown deformities in my ankles. I noticed them in the shower after a basketball game.

“One in five football NFL players has this.”

The ortho told me he didn’t want to “treat” me. I became sad. It turned out he didn’t want to operate. I didn’t want that either. Didn’t he know of other options?

I got a referral to pain management. This specialist was kind, thoughtful, and listed. The ortho wasn’t.

He began injections; I had to watch my breathing each time.

Nerve blocks, facet joint injections. The radiofrequency ablation? That was cruel.

I also saw PT. Three different occasions.

I saw Eastern Medicine.

I saw prayer healing.

I saw a pain psychologist.

I changed my workouts.

I alternated Tylenol and Advil. I took all the meds I was prescribed, though never the narcs. I once was addicted to Vicodin.

I alternated heat and ice, always ending with ice.

I stretched and activated it three times a day.

I heard about stem cells, PRP, and the use of non-insurance approved items.

I saw massage therapists. The time in massage was a relief. Holy relief. No discomfort.

Until I walked out of their office.

One time, the pain management doctor did the radiofrequency, again. This involved electrical current across the spine to burn out nerves, and my legs shook violently. I bit my lip, closed my eyes, and cried silently. Afterwards, I couldn’t get up. Once the techs pulled me off the table, I nearly fell. They got a wheelchair, and the doctor came in and was astonished at what it did to me. Since then, he changed his protocol. No Tylenol or Advil a week before, Xanax available if needed, and more Lidocaine to help.

He eventually groaned, and he suggested a spinal cord stimulator. I never bitterly wept in front of a doctor like I did then.

We did more injections, varying to trigger points and epidurals. I told him to save his lidocaine the twentieth visit. I was used to it, and some other patients might need it if there’s ever a shortage.

He eventually gave me the name of a spine specialist he trusted. I went to this surgeon. He looked at my MRIs, CAT scan, and X-Rays He pointed out where the Pars was, how it caused the rest of my pelvis and spine to rotate incorrectly (spondylolisthesis). He also showed a bulge, or tear, in my L5 S1. He wanted the list of injuries and surgeries.

I had them written down this time. He looked at the list and shook his head; after a moment, he asked if I was in a safe place. I didn’t understand the question. He said he could operate and fix it by fusing and decompressing the L4 and L5. I didn’t know what this meant; I knew of people who had back surgeries and got better soon after.

We set a date for June 28, 2014. After the school year. PTO was for emergencies only.

The days before the surgery, I had to clean my back in different ways using my own soap and the ones they provided. It was every day that week.

I showed up that morning. Every nurse and tech said at 27, I was too young for this.

I agreed.

I added I was too young to keep missing work, avoid leaving the house, to never bend, to walk like a giraffe, to groan at the idea of a chair, to never go on an airplane, to wince at a car, to make every choice based on how it would impact me later, to need more injections than I ever had, to have more steroids in the lumbar, to hesitate and worry at the gym, to have my body “lock up” and be unable to move, to not even sleep, to worry about how I carry a backpack, to not be able to do my dishes, pick up after my dog without worrying, get my toolbox and get to it, to wonder what each choice or stress will do to my pain level, to have my own stretch table, to have to tell every provider no Oxy, to take Tylenol, Advil, and nerve pain, to look forward to massage and not in a sexy way, to change the way I work out if I’m able to work out, to avoid concerts, sporting events, shows, movie theaters, airplanes, or anything else that could alter my lumbar discomfort.

The techs looked with compassion and cleaned my back again. I was exhausted. I couldn’t sleep and the Discovery Channel had Naked and Afraid all night. I never watched it before, but seeing these people survive in the wild without anything made me feel I could do it.

I packed twelve books, a notebook, and a pillow.

The surgeon knew I was nervous. He asked what song he could have played in the operating room on my arrival.

I said Three Little Birds by Bob Marley. He smiled in a way surgeons never do. He said he loved that song.

I went in and went under. I dreamed about Ana Strong and Turn. Don’t ask. I still remember since waking up, I asked all the nurses and techs to check if Ana Strong was safe, New York was occupied, and I had to get the data to General Washington. I was a hoot.

When I came to, I was in bed. I was told not to move, not that I could if I wanted to. I had a catheter in my penis so I could pee. My hands didn’t work. I had no feeling or control at all in either hand. I reached for my book, And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini, and my hands were fish and limp. I shook them and they didn’t return to me.

The techs fed me and cared for me, but I wept since I couldn’t do it myself. One of my supervisors had neck surgery the previous year, and his hand still didn’t work fully. Was that going to be me?

The catheter in my penis burned. They said to pee. I couldn’t empty my bladder and begged to get up to the toilet. I couldn’t even move. I emptied just a little and sighed in discomfort.

They originally said I would be up that day.

I cried again.

They put meds in my IV, and they started the pain med cocktail arrangement.

The hospital was not quiet. It was a known research university hospital next to a notorious part of the city for being noisy and busy. Traffic was all day and all night. I couldn’t get quiet. It was not the hospital’s fault, but it was loud. I wondered why this recovery wasn’t like the others.

What did I get into?

Where would this go?

Would I ever go to the bathroom and feel relief?

Was I an addict, again?

Would my hands work again?

The techs and nurses didn’t want to answer. The PA sighed. The doctor told me to keep my head up. Eventually, a PA started injections in my hands.

She said during the operation, I was on my stomach, and my hands were essentially in straps for the six-hour surgery with all my weight pulling them down.

I missed that detail.

And six hours???

I watched The Leftovers and the World Cup.

I didn’t know what was coming.

It would get worse.

My hands? My ability to go to the bathroom? The burning down low? The partial paralysis? Was it a fix?

We’ll be like Nolan and go forward.

Part two is coming soon.