Re: OT - Getting Nervous (Long)
- From: "CatNipped" <CatNipped@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2008 09:12:36 -0500
"Gandalf" <g.gandalf@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:48c26834.9597671@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Wed, 3 Sep 2008 14:13:26 -0500, "CatNipped"
<CatNipped@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Less than 2 days now until my surgery and I'm getting a bit nervous!I know what you mean about looking up medical procedures on the net: the
What I'm having done is an "anterior cervical discectomy with fusion at C6
and C7". What this involves is: cutting a two inch incision in the front
of my neck, and a little to the left so as to miss the laryngeal nerve
(which, if nicked, could cause me to permanently lose my voice). Then
they
push aside the soft tissue (esophagus, trachea, carotid artery, jugular
vein, and muscle - trying not to nick any of those either) to expose the
front of the spine. Then they use a vertebrae "spreader" to separate the
two vertebrae and expose the ruptured disc. They then cut through the
outer
wall of the disc and remove the disc. Then they use a bone drill to
remove
any stenosis (bone spurs) at the point where the nerves branch off from
the
spinal cord to the right and left. [At this point they are millimeters
away
from the spinal cord and any mistake could cause permanent pain, paralysis
or even death.] Then they insert a piece of bone between the two
vertebrae
(from a bone bank - they won't be using mine from my hip, thank goodness -
they say the pain from taking that graft is worse than the neck incision).
[The bone is used as a wedge to keep the two vertebrae from pinching down
on
the nerves again.] Then they screw on a titanium plate to the two
vertebrae
to keep them closed tightly over the bone implant until it all fuses into
one bone. Then they close and suture each layer, stick a bandaid over the
whole mess and I'm done!
If you're interested in the medical stuff, this explains it best:
http://www.mayfieldclinic.com/PE-ACDF.htm and this has good illustrations:
http://www.sofamordanek.com/spineline/ACDF.pdf.
Now, aside from finding some helpful information that explains this
surgery - as in the two links above - the biggest mistake I've made so far
is to go on the internet and look up this procedure. I've seen hundreds
of
posts from people who have had it done and had disastrous results - horror
stories of all kinds of mistakes made, agonies suffered, etc., etc.
I know it's human nature to focus on the negative, so I'm trying to ignore
these. I also know, from the things I've seen written, that these people
must have had total incompetents for surgeons (one suggested a patient
take
Advil at every meal after surgery despite the fact that anti-inflammatory
drugs are known to inhibit bone healing). But it's also human nature to
be
scared out of one's skull when facing having someone laying open one's
neck
and spine!!
The surgery is scheduled for this Friday, 9/5/2008, at around 10:30AM
(central time here in Houston). It's going to be done at Methodist
Hospital, and I'll be there just one night, hopefully. I'll ask Ben to
post
something here after he gets home from the hospital that day, but if you
don't hear it's probably just because he'll forget. I should be able to
get
on my computer a few days after surgery and let you know how it all went
(and whether I would recommend the surgery to others with this problem).
Yeah, Victor, I know I'm a drama queen... but in this instance I think I'm
allowed a bit of nerves shown and purrs asked of friends!
Hugs,
CatNipped
ONLY stories you find are the BAD ones.
But that is because the 99.99% who have totally successful surgery have
NOTHING to complain about. And thus they NO REASON to put their
relatively 'boring' story about their completely uneventful surgery and
quick and complete recovery on the internet for you to read!
I'm sure with your mind you know this is true, but your heart tells you
that the bad stories are what is going to happen to you.
Well, I've had more surgery than I can even REMEMBER (over 20 surgeries,
IIRC), and ALL of it was just like it was out of a medical textbook: no
problems, complications, just nothing EVER went wrong. I got better.
Much better. End of story.
And it will be the same for you.
Very special purrs are on the way to make absolutely certain this is the
case!
~~~~~~~~~~~~ >^..^<
"Life without cats would be only marginally worth living."
-TC, and the unmercifully, relentlessly, sweet calico kitty, Kenzie.
Every day is a treasure with Kenzie; I try to treat them that way. There
will only be so many, and then there will never, ever, be any more.
How you behave towards cats here below determines your status in Heaven.
- Robert Heinlein
And as scary as yours sounds, the odds are overwhelmingly in
Thanks Gandalf! I know you're right, but things just seem to go wrong for
me so often it's hard to imagine they won't. However, there is nothing I
can do to change whatever happens, so worrying about it does absolutely no
good, it only makes me nervous! I'm trying to just not think about it at
all.
Hugs,
CatNipped
.
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