Another Surgery

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 Two weeks post op and the stitches in his back and the staples in his side are out and the doctor is impressed with his work. He said Tom is doing better than a lot of his patients after two MONTHS post op. Bad new is they referred him to the orthopedist for the pain in his knee.

The recovery had a slow start. The surgery included two parts, actually two surgeries. The original bad disc was in such a place that they couldn't get to it through the back so through the last four surgeries they left the crumbling disc in place. This surgery started with  a 6inch incision on his side to remove the bad disc and put in a spacer. That alone took an hour and a half. Then they had to flip him to his stomach to do the second surgery which was to add on to the fusion he already had both at the top and bottom. They took him back at 11am and completed at 5:30 but he didn't make it to recovery until after eight.
They had some trouble getting him sedated. The person who put his original IV in did not have it in his vein so the drugs they were putting in to relax him before surgery didn't work at all, he found the operating room all very interesting. By the time they got him to sleep they had trouble intubating him so when he came out of surgery so late they decided to keep him intubated and sedated just in case. That was a bit scary, the last time I saw someone intubated was my dad and THAT didn't come out so well.
The next morning he was doing much better but that was when we realized he had a spinal head ache. The doctor said they found a pouch of spinal fluid that leaked. That kept Tom flat on his back in bed for three days. He also had a fever and an Ileus (his inestines didn't wake up) so he couldn't eat but on the fourth day he was out of bed and the fifth day he came home.

SHOUT OUT TO OUR SON AND DAUGHTER IN LAW FOR DRIVING ME TO BALTIMORE EVERY DAY. I COULD HAVE DONE IT MYSELF BUT IT WAS GREAT THAT I DIDN'T HAVE TO. ALSO TO JENNIFER FOR KEEPING THE HOUSE RUNNING AND OUR FOSTER SON SAFE. THE THREE OF YOU WENT ABOVE AND BEYOND. LOVE YOU!

Good News/Bad News

Tom's Dr. appointment gave us some good news. It looks like the bulging in his cervical spine is on the "mild" side. Since he has degenerating disks it will most likely cause issues down the road.  Maybe not for another couple of years or maybe not for 10 or even 20 years. In the mean time, we'll take it. They did also notice the arachnoditis, I guess not knowing we already had the diagnosis. Nothing they can do for that but refer him to pain management anyway. On to the lumbar where his newest, strongest pain is at the moment.
Both doctors we had were very excited to see his X-rays (no, not the three hours worth of MRI's THOSE only showed the "mild" bulging of a couple of disks).It appears that his last fusion of L4-S1 worked so well that it has caused Flat Back Syndrome causing  inflexibility in numerous lower body muscles. Gaining curvature in the lumbar spine involves lengthening the muscle.This is why he can't stand up straight or without having his knees bent.  He has horrible muscle spasms and bouts of total numbness from the waist down. Good news, there's a way to fix it. Bad news is that fix exists of a "controlled" break of his spine and grafting wedges placed to give his spine the correct curve. It's more than the VA doctors can handle so he had some X-rays standing up and we're waiting on an appointment with a doctor for the referral.
Scary stuff but he seems excited about it. Every time he comes out of surgery he says never again but he's usually more than ready by the time they want to try something else. If they do it he'll need at least 3 months to recover so probably not until September or so. After all our niece is getting married in August. He also just got hired to be a referee for flag football for 10 year olds and younger. He's still working at Ripken Stadium as a tournament official for kids but can only do up to 4 games in a day and no two days in a row. He's also starting his Eucharistic Ministry at the hospital this week. Can't keep a good man down.

Oh Ya! we are officially open as a Foster Home as are Thomas and Natalie. With Jen and the kids here though we likely won't get called.

 Life is good.