Post-op report: Day 15 - Spinal Cord Disorders Message Board

IonMan · 05-07-2003, 09:01 PM

Hi everybody.

Well the last few days haven't been so much fun. I am not in a lot of pain, or at least not one specific ache or pain. I took the last of the oxycotin on Sunday. I was happy, as I don't like taking many painkillers; they just whack me out too much. But now I guess it's still too soon after the surgery and I need little help so I broke down and I took a couple of the Roxicet today, much as I did not want to. I was taking Tylenol but I don't like taking so many a day and still my shoulders a been a little sore today and I have been taking it really easy. I do know that I will be happy when I can start taking my arthritis medication again. So many little nagging aches and pains, and knuckle here, a knee there, a twinge in this ankle, you get the picture. As I said no severe pain anywhere but enough so I just can't seem to get comfortable enough to sleep very long at a time. Am I glad I have cable at 3:00 in the morning as all local channels of nothing but infomercials.

One bit of good news, and started using some Gold Bond medicated powder on my neck along with using ripped up T-shirts to put between the brace and my neck, between those two things most of the itching in irritation has gone away. Also my steri-strips are gone so I can now see the cut, it's healing really well.

I've got a question, is it normal for you to lose around your neck? I'll bet my shirt collar size has dropped 2 in. since the surgery. I now have flaps were the Velcro strips are left over on my Miami J collar, where as before there was none left over. I think this might be part of the reason why am having a little bit of a hard time getting comfortable as a pillow I used when I first got home is no longer comfortable to use. And no matter what I do it seems that the Miami j collar wants to dig into my back while I sleep.

I want to apologize if some of this doesn't make sense as I have been using my speech recognition system to create this text. I'm not sure if it saves me any time or keystrokes considering the amount of Corrections and I have to do. But as I've said before "it's a new Toy ta play with".

Well I hope I get some sleep tonight otherwise I will have to subject you all to some corny jokes later on in the wee hours. (might just think on how to crack the beer atom.)

Cheers
Cliff

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Cervical myelopathy with frank cord compression from bony impingement.
22 Apr 03 C5 corpectomy, a C4/6 strut graft with allograft bone, titanium plate

winged phantom · 05-07-2003, 09:56 PM

Hey Cliff!
Great to hear your news on how things are going! Such a special thing to go through this, isn't it? Aren't we the lucky ones? I have not lost any weight in my neck.... probably due to the scar tissue keeping my neck fat, ya think? And I still want to use some pain killers... an Ultracet here, half a Percocet there.... sometimes a whole Percocet, and occasionally a cyclobenzaprine (gen Flexeril). And sometimes use diphenhydramine (Benedryl) to sleep. I still have the short fat guy in stillettos tapping on my right shoulder, and occasionally I feel pain all down my right arm... aside from the fact I get worn out real easily from exertion.

Starting at about 2-2 1/2 weeks, the fancy, contoured foam pillow I had bought a few years ago started feeling good to me (I sleep without a collar, as long as I'm laying down and won't get into some wierd position that will kink my neck); currently, I'm still sleeping about 10 hours a night! I just need to catch up on all the sleep I've been missing all these years.

But I've started cooking a few meals... getting ready for when it's just my son and me for a few weeks. Yeah, I've got a son moving in again after 5 years away! More on that under my own (old) thread, but maybe not tonight.

Cliff, remember that pillows and cushions, lots of them, are your real, true friends! Experiment with them in different combos and positions. For a while, I liked to lay a couch cushion propped against the couch arm, with another soft pillow at its base, and a pillow under my knees. This was as close as I could get to a 45 degree slanted cushion. And it helped if I could wedge my head against something... it just takes imagination and desperation to make something work.

I'll have to send your Bart phrases to my kids, both dyed in the wool Simpson fans; they'll love them! I had no idea there were so many of them, but I should have suspected!

Take care, Cliff! See what else you can "dream up" in the wee hours when you can't sleep!
wr

PS Today I'm 4 weeks post-op!

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12/29/89 C5-6 Microdiskectomy (no fusion)
4/9/03 ACDF C4-7 with plating and donor bone

joprud · 05-08-2003, 12:29 AM

Unless some demon mental block
Plays hell with your internal clock,
You cannot fathom what's involved
In chronic sleeplessness unsolved.
It's not design or choice or whim
To prowl from One to Five A.M.

Until you've tried each remedy
From herbs topills to caffeine-free
And wisely gone to bed at ten
To soon awake ball-eyed again,
Please don't suggest, "Just clear your head."
My friend, that's harder done than said.

The best laid scheme won't ease the plight
Of us who roam the halls at night
So listen close, for what it's worth:
If, by some miracle of birth,
Firsthand experience you do lack --
DON'T MESS WITH AN INSOMNIAC!

('specially one inpain)

Me

Nanner · 05-08-2003, 12:49 AM

That is too precious, Joanne! After sleeping a whopping 4 hours last night, I was passing out at 10 tonight. Got up at 12:39 and I'm still here.

Y'all think we just get so used to not sleeping from the pain and discomfort that it becomes a habit?

Cliff, I think the neck shrinkage could just be swelling going down after the surgery. My neck was really thick for a while-it took months for it to get back to about normal size. I'm still lopsided, but not as bad as right after the operation. Now when I wear a necklace it isn't halfway to my left shoulder (slight exaggeration, but I felt like a freak).

As for the painkillers, take what you need, man! If you are only doing one or two as needed this soon after surgery, you hardly sound like you are going to get addicted. We rail about the docs not treating our pain, but we have to be an active participant in dealing with it. Eventually you won't need them anymore, and you can do the happy dance

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Nancy D-ACDF C6-7 on 6/7/02. Donor bone with no hardware

[This message has been edited by Nanner (edited 05-08-2003).]

IonMan · 05-08-2003, 02:39 AM

Hello Wing, Joanne & Nancy

Thanks you guys, I'll have a little cheese with my whine, if you please. LOL

I love the poem. (So true, DON'T MESS WITH AN INSOMNIAC!, we can be a bit unstable)

I made myself stay up today just so I would be tired and sleep tonight, OK, I found I did drop off watching the TV for a few moments watching the news, but otherwise I was awake. So when I did go to my chair at middnight I did sleep for a couple of hours, once awoke I tried to stay there, hoping that if I just stayed still I would drop back off. No such luck.

I laid on my bed for a few moments, but had an overwhelming desire to roll over and sleep on my side. In fact I did for about as long as it took me to think about the alignment of my neck that way!

You see I can accept that my sleep can be so messed up due to the drugs, that is why I want off them, but I guess I can not blaime them for all the lost sleep.

I guess with my advantages I am going to go back to sleeping when I can, even if it means I am napping at all hours. If I must endure I will, (As the manly man steps forward, chin thrust up & forward by the Miami J collar, wearing his huge worn terrycloth robe like a cape, fluttering with the manly made brezze.)(The manly man likes chili, with beans.

) The Manly man paces the floor, wanders the kitchen, watches TV, anything to battle the evil Insomnia.) (definatly way, way too much TV)

I leave you all now before I get way too silly. ( the perfect time, O-4-dark Oclock, to consider the age old problem, how to split the beer atom. (has any one watched a very silly movie called "Young Einstein"?)

Cheers
Cliff

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Cervical myelopathy with frank cord compression from bony impingement.
22 Apr 03 C5 corpectomy, a C4/6 strut graft with allograft bone, titanium plate

[This message has been edited by IonMan (edited 05-10-2003).]