Celebrating milestones
 

I just passed a milestone I hadn't really been thinking of but am SOOOO excited to have passed, and I just had to share with someone(s!) who would know what I mean and why it's so exciting.

I'm now 4 weeks and 4 days out from my SCS implant, and I have been diligently following BLAST and doing my best to be careful. I went back to my (desk) job 2 weeks ago, and things have been pretty routine. Over the past week or so I found myself occasionally having a small startle/smidge of panic and thinking "did the stim area change again? Is it still on?", because for a few minutes I forgot the SCS was on. I am a really big worrywart so the fact that I didn't actively notice/think about the stim for even a few minutes was HUGE!

Then, the best part. This past weekend, I drove over to my Grandma's with my hubby. We hung out and I puttered around with Grandma for most of the day, and when we got ready to leave I got in the car and suddenly realized...

I had gone an entire day without thinking about/noticing/worrying about my SCS. It was on, it helped me be a "normal" person, and I didn't have to spend the whole day thinking about my pain, or whether it was working to dampen my pain--I just lived. Did I still hurt? Yes, of course/unfortunately. Was it better than the pain before the SCS? Absolutely. And am I eternally grateful for this respite? Beyond a doubt. Even if I only get this one experience of being able to "forget" my pain for a while, it was a sublime experience I didn't think I'd ever be able to have again.

So, to milestones--and to forgetting without knowing we've forgotten! For a moment or a day or a lifetime, I'm celebrating!

the best news
 

just Glorious!!!!!!!


sharing your joy

thanks
Johanna

Yup
 

Isn't that just the BEST?!?!?!

Yea for you, Jen :hug:

dear friend
i am thrilled you could go a whole day without
having any interruption with your SCS maybe just
maybe i'll cave and have no choice but have one
planted in to cover the pains
until then i have stories such as yours to hear
God bless as you are blessed

"Graduation"!!!
 

WOO HOO!!!! Today is my six week anniversary--six short(long) weeks ago I was joined together with my SCS implant, for better or for worse, 'til death (or extensive surgery) do us part. The honeymoon was great, and while there have been bumpy periods as we learned to live together, life as a "newlywed" is amazing. Just like my first marriage (to my human husband, still married, not sure if this makes me a bigamist? :) ), my SCS has changed my life for the better, helping me keep ahold of the happiness I knew I could find (and deserved), making daily life so much easier and supporting me as I go places I couldn't go on my own.

Now I just have to hold out until the 12th, when I get the official sign-off from the doc and (yay!) my AdaptiveStim programming.

It's funny, I married my wonderful husband, light of my life, on Sept. 17, 2005, and in the past 8 years we've spent our anniversary or near-anniversary in the hospital 4 times for me to have surgery or treatments. My doc told us this year that his anniversary present to us this year was to help keep me out of the hospital for our anniversaries to come--looks promising so far!

Thanks so much to you all for your support and encouragement!
Jen

So EXCITED for you ! :) :)
 

Hi Debi!
 

Great news! Getting ready to make my decision...
 

Something is better than nothing!
 

That's what an scs does. It makes it better. Doesn't fix it. Lets you feel more normal. More stamina. For me it's given me road biking. Road biking = hope and a chance to go do something physical with friends. I'm actually getting fast (cause it's all i do !!). Even though the energy is surging up legs, that respite from feeling pain related disability is priceless. To have one thing for me i really enjoy - priceless. If only work were so easy!! My best to you all.

MimiJeanne, MD is totally right, and I'm sure you understand better than most the "something is better than nothing". It took me years of pain and disabling restrictions to get to the point where I am now able to celebrate the "somethings"--and be incredibly grateful! I spent the past week at the hospital for 14 hour shifts, visiting my grandma, and when I got home I would sit on the couch and, instead of crying in pain, I just hurt. Who would have thought I'd be grateful to hurt after 14 hours in hospital visitor chairs?! The thing was, I knew that I'd never have been able to do it before the implant, never been able to get myself to the hospital, to make the walk from the parking lot to her room, to sit in waiting room and hospital room torture chairs for 14 hours, and make it back to the car and home again. I honestly feel like someone who has been given the gift of being able to learn to walk unassisted again (my pain wasn't triggered by a traumatic injury as others', so I had a long slow, often outwardly invisible deterioration before I got my SCS). It still hurts, but I'm walking!! No cane, no handicap parking, no planning my seat's proximity to the bathroom :) I am the only person at work who actually enjoys the "trek" to the other side of the building (it's a long building with offices at either end), and I continue to find silly pleasure in little things that I'm able to do--my hubby thought it was hilarious how excited I was to be ironing his shirts this morning (I thought it was awesome that I could and that I didn't have to pay someone else to do it anymore!).

So, long story short, I'm super-excited by every milestone I have, and many of them are celebrating the absence of pain, or the absence of mindfulness of the pain, and many are also celebrating the fact that when the pain returns it's in reward for a life well-lived and not as a constant tormentor.

Good luck! And I also recommend the many other testimonials on this site--I read through posts almost every night and it was wonderful to see the range of experiences, and especially those of the "old-timers" :) who can give you a great view of what the long-term experience can be like, good and bad. The sticky by Mark56 is a really wonderful account of his experience, and there are a lot of others, just explore.

Thanks!
Jen

TY
 

Oh Jen....thanks for the inspiration and a re-affirmation.
I casually go thru my every days with a small smile to myself about my little accomplishments...sometimes I talk out loud to my body....congratulating it!
I am still on a high from being able to dance again with abandonment on that cruise in August.

I am so thrilled you are able to be with your Grandma and make memories.

HB

Hello MimiJeanne!
 

insert theme song here
 

I am now a confirmed Bionic Woman--had my appt. yesterday and got final programming (AdaptiveStim) and confirmation of scarring-in of leads. SOOOOOOOO excited! :yahoo:

I've gone from needing a cane to walk (for balance--constant leg pain at level 5-6 can cause serious balance issues when you have spikes up to an 8 at random intervals) and not being able to go more than 50 feet without sitting to actually wanting to go to the Walmart SuperCenter (I live in the hometown of Walmart, it's really the only option here for a big-box/long-way-to-walk shopping experience). Of course, my pain's not gone, I never expected that would happen, but I am incredibly grateful to be down to a 2 (and sometimes not even 2)--I never expected that to happen either! I'll be 35 years old in January and now I've been granted the ability to enjoy my youth while it lasts :p

And to anyone thinking about a Medtronic AdaptiveStim unit--WOW! I knew what it did (automatically change stimulation based on your orientation--on back/on each side/sitting/standing/walking) and was excited to get it programmed, but I will admit that when they finished the programming and left the room I got up on the exam table, laid down on my back, and rolled over to one side, then to my back, then the other side, then to my back, then to the other side, then to my back...I'm a side sleeper and never ever would have guessed I'd have missed the ability to do that simple roll without re-programming myself! It's been amazing and my rep left me the ability to do some tweaking in case things aren't the same in the real world as in the exam room.

So, really long post/story short--I've arrived! (I feel like the Jerk--I'm somebody!). It was (it felt like) a long process, and there were a LOT of times that I felt like giving up or at least giving up hope, but all of you here in the forums were so wonderful; I could read the stories and the exchanges and know that I wasn't alone, that there were many others that had gone before me, and that even if things didn't end in this great place there were still people out there who were going forward and the world wouldn't end. Thank you all so much!!!!!!!!!! (and if I could share this feeling with every single one of you who haven't gotten here I would gladly alternate days with you--one for me, one for you, one for me, one for you...)

Jen

so great
 

just wonderful!!!

Stay with us ...

how interesting that many reps are now letting the patient "tweeek"...
that has made sense to all of us forever

Johanna