It has been 1 week since I had major back surgery. Up until now, I have been questioning myself why I did this. The pain wasn’t that bad. (At least not all the time) There was always the pins and needles feeling or numbness in my foot. Pain in the hip, buttocks, and low back would come and go. There was no rhyme or reason to the pain. It was continually getting worse. Nothing was helping it. It had caused major disruption in my life. I was unable to do a lot of the things I like to do. I had gained a bunch of weight because I felt sorry for myself. Last year I never even took my kayak out and I did a grand total of 10 runs on my snowboard. 4 of those runs on the bunny hill and 4 of them on just the lower half of the mountain.
I realized today that I have not had a single episode of the pins & needles number feeling in my foot. No pain in my hip or buttocks. The only pain I am having is at the area of the incision.
I can’t actually see the incision, but it is about 7 inches long. There are plates and screws in there holding 2 of the vertebrae together. They chipped out all the arthritis and bone spurs from the facets or “holes” in the vertebrae where the nerves come out. They also cleaned out the disk space and moved a vertebrae 12mm. To get to where they could do all this work, they cut, stretched, and move stuff out of the way. The pain I am experiencing is from what they had to do in order to repair my back. I realized that this pain will get better and eventually be gone for good unlike the pain I was having before which would only get worse.
I am no longer questions myself on why I did this. Now, it’s what can I do to help myself heal.