YOU absolutely may say that!
Thank you,
M56

"DITTO"......"DITTO"......and more "DITTO"


Gerry

I feel so very blessed to have the care from ALL who have weighed in, whether by messages here, prayers, thoughts, POOH bringing our spirits up with another of her long line of Virtual Parties in the hundred acre wood next to her pond..... just everything!

Doc will allow me to return to the office a week from today. The infection window will have closed by time, and there will be far less risk at making a return to work among my associates. What a thrill!

Amazing it is that this neck thing caused so MUCH pain, near loss of the use of my arms, and for SO SO Long..... then I awaken from that doubly involved fusion surgery and all arm pain and nausea vanished. Amazing!

Today, I worked a longer day here in my home, managing to work for 6 hours straight before I had to relent and surrender to sleep. A three hour nap refilled my "energy" and I am able to type here without any pain at all! Before, each keystroke was agony.

Weaning down off of the surgery pain meds. Only three pain pills [Norco] a day now, down from 12. Making progress, making progress.

BLAST..... it was sort of funny, you know? Here I am in the hospital and the physical therapist comes along to teach me log roll and BLT...... not BLAST, but the old tried and true BLT.... I bit my tongue, followed the instructions, and received accolades for doing well..... then I confessed about writing about both Log Roll and BLAST. It was WAY COOL!! The hospital department head asked me whether they might be allowed to use BLAST and I said.... "Well SURE!" They thought that was OK! A new thought for spine patients! What a blessing!

My Boston Scientific SCS is working mighty fine! I am good about keeping it charged, and anymore, I never dial it down. Finally found the setting most pleasing to this old [may I say OLD] bod, and just let it percolate. It does marvelous work handling all of that low lumbar and leg pain. What a Blessing that invention is for we who are able to use it.

OK, I guess I should stop this novel before it starts to compete with Tolstoy.

I love you all,
You are tops,
How Blessed I am,
God is GOOD!

I might amble down the hall to the kitchen and ask whether I may help with dinner..... how about that?

HUGZ to all,

Coming up on three weeks post op on that posterior fusion.

Today, I was able to last all of the daylight hours reducing my Norco in half yet again. Down from 12 a day to one half pill every eight hours. Not bad. I was even able to endure work for seven hours today..... but then my energy reserve depleted totally and I had to sleep for a couple of hours. Improvement, yes?

So, this evening, after arising from my late afternoon nap of a couple hours, I asked to go with my wife for bell choir rehearsal. No, I am not ringing, as that torque would be just the worst thing I can imagine on my tender neck. What I enjoyed was some alone time with her, enjoying a ride in the car, a meal at a cheap restaurant fairly quickly, then I switched collars to try driving home for her since driving at night is not her "thing." Doc had said I could give it a go IF I felt up to it. I thought I did. Driving was OK, BUT the neck was not happy about it at all. I guess the movement of neck to view mirrors for surrounding traffic and the strain on the neck from bumps, driving with the soft collar, AND holding the steering wheel was just a bit too much.

Got home, took two full Norco with the relaxer and called it a night, just resting with the hard collar on. It helped. Whew! I will lay off driving for a bit longer to allow more healing.

It was a good test of the healing. I learned the necessary information, and decided to back off and be cautious...... HEY Rae!!!! Do you need me to come over and throw any Hay Bales??? Or maybe I could just help Pooh with a cow or two given to fits of falling on their humans......

NOT! I will be good, work safely from home a few more days. Give it a go again when I feel more UP to it.

Yup, I do still feel quite blessed, blessed indeed.

Off of all pain meds now these past two days, I titrated down carefully as done before..... I have practice you know?...... using only my Boston Scientific SCS now to help the lower body. The cervical spine surgical pain is manageable without meds. Aggravation is what I would call it, and that I can tolerate. WHEW!

Back to the office tomorrow. Dragons to slay, Clients to serve. Papers to sign. Glad of it.

I drove solo to church today since my wife was under the weather and did not want to offer up free illness to all takers.... the drive was without incident! No pain! SO, tomorrow, I intend to drive self to a shortened day. Take it easy on the self, respectful that I will still tire, and just work my way back into the fold.

Thank you so much, SO MUCH for holding me up in prayer, in thoughts, in hugs through this ordeal. I believe there is a light at the end of this tunnel and have every belief it is not a train headed in my direction .

HUGZ a-plenty all around, from me to thee, and as a group

Feeling inspired, although a bug in NT will not let me reset my Mood Indicator appropriately..... it seems to be stuck on sick [I wrote to the moderators and await their help - they are very good about help ]

G'night,
M56

Interesting how the scape of the page changed in really not all that long.

The chief overseers of NT shook the Stickie Tree. Fruit fell. A thread which so many counted on around the world went away to the depths of thread "searchdom." That piece I wrote about going through SCS implant is gone. Huh. So much for helping people.

Truth be told regarding my recent hiatus, things have been..... well, overwhelming. One of our children attempted a sayonara song to this life and I posted about that on survivors of suicide, unless the overseers moved that as well.... He has come through the episode in treatment; is doing reasonably well; his wife trying to encourage him to talk to us; we wait patiently just sending an occasional text imparting love. Really, one can try as a parent to be too parental in such a time, and push the at risk person away. We are treading softly. This has taken much of our emotional capital.

Work..... well, you know from reading how MDinpain writes and PoohAC, of course, it is hard for a professional to be reintroduced to the work day and not try to do too much. I am guilty. Truly, I work until I nearly drop. Yes... overdoing. Thing is the body will not continue when fatigued in recovery from major surgery. In my case, I will just fall fast asleep. There is no pain... none at all in the body from the old nerve injury or from the surgery, and I praise God this is taken from me.

Sleep.... I still sleep around 12 hours a day. I have to. Upon awakening, the batteries are recharged, and I seem to believe I can do much.. so I do. Go the office for several hours [still not a full day] and take on all the clients need with gusto, but long about 1:30 I begin to fade. I have to get home and in bed by around 2:30 or 3 because I fall asleep, 3 or more hours worth before being charged up for a short evening with the family or wrapping up a tidbit of work.

Energy is improving, I just must respect the need for rest, and lots of it for full recovery. I am amazed what it takes. Reckon I am not a spring chicken any longer......

Several of you have written lately to send care, concern, prayer, thoughts, and hope regarding the hiatus. Thank you so much! I just have not had enough of me to go around..... not enough. At least, last weekend, first time in years.... I was able to fill in a sing among the worship leaders- it felt good, and not to have any pain to boot.

Thank you ALL for all you give to me and to my family by way of buoyancy. It is so very much appreciated, so very much appreciated...

LOVE to all, and I do mean this from my heart,
Mark56

I have learned administration of the forum needed to pare back the stickie tree to properly manage it. There were problems associated with the original thread on this trail of pain management being included in full there. It makes good and prudent sense. The forum for discussion is here among threads. Helpful links are permitted in stickies. My comments about the removal were ungracious and unbecoming, and for this I apologize to all administrators and to you who read.

For this reason, I removed the last of the messages I had written to this thread, as the title could not be changed by me and was definitely off base.

Hopefully, the lesson learned here for all is heightened respect for those who watch over us

Down to business- The link to the original of this series in a walk through spinal cord stim implant surgery is http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/sh...ton+Scientific click it to access the thread which began this whole experience of walk into such surgery for me.

I feel blessed, both by being guided by our administrators AND by having been allowed the surgical method which brought immense betterment to my pain management life.

M56

With gratitude I thank you for bringing it back... now for more good reads, and choices to make.

Continue to rest and heal... blessings

Hana

It has been two weeks since checking in with you all. I do sincerely apologize.

Returning to work and continuing the healing process has been, well, a hard path. Sure, I have been blessed to return to work and have no pain, not even from the surgery.... but I fatigue tremendously.... and my clients pull and pull, and I want so to lengthen my day in the office. So, I tire.

Work is going well. I manage to do more each week in the office, then retire to our home and take a nap because I just cannot keep the eyelids open. Then, back to work remotely from home for a bit, eat dinner, sit with the family briefly, then off to bed. It may not seem like a lot, but being where each of us has trod, I feel privileged to be making strides.

Today, after church, lunch here at home, a bit of rest.... we took a late afternoon walk. That was nice. More of that to come!

I don't think there will be any Iron bike rides for me for a while, at least not for another five weeks and this brace come off of my neck.

I am pooped,
Gotta go to bed,
g'night,

Gosh. I have been working. I have been enjoying my stim. So much so that I had gone for three weeks not even stressing whether the remote was right There where I might need it.... this is because I had not touched my remote for three weeks. The setting was working.

Yesterday I started to HURT. Bummer. Recharged myself as per regular need. Then grabbed the remote and turned up the signal a powerful lot. Got control over the pain. At last I wound down the signal to a low rumble so I could go to sleep. All is well again.

I guess I will be on my stim as a user for a LONG time. Doc tried to get me to try shutting it off to see.... because some stim patients finally realize their nerve has calmed. Mine is still very much angry, nine years into this tale.

Alas,
BUT, I have my stim,
Sign me BLESSED