Originally Posted by bloomer

Hi all, Ive been reading all your stories for awhile, Thanks for All the success stories and inspiration! and I felt like getting on to share, Im a 48yr old male scheduled for a S1-L5-L4 fusion on 6/29/09, second scheduling since I came down sick 5 days before the original date two weeks ago. I have some pain but nothing I cant handle if I watch what I'm doing, I have the usual issues with sleep loss, weight gain and no bending or lifting, with the added twist of leg pain and numbness if I sit or stand for more than 10 or 15 minutes, this rules out any kind of work, Ive been on my back for over 6 months now, having gone through all the different pain killers and epidurals but ultimately nothing helped, so we're looking at the surgery, I'm both aprehensive and anxious at the same time, My Dr. is about as good as anyone could ask for and I even went the extra step to ask his nurse if she could put me in touch with someone local that they had reciently done the same surgery on, He was 6 weeks post surgery and walking a mile each day, and he said he wished he'd had it done 10 years ago. very encouraging
so, as scarry as this is I'm looking forward to the results, as a father of three boys it's tough when your littlest has a night mare and daddy cant pick him up, it hurts in more ways than just the pain. after a lifetime of trying to be independant and strong, this is tough, real tough.
thank you all for sharing and providing so many success stories.
I'll write again post op.