Posts Tagged ‘neurosurgeon’

Gold Star For Recovery == Back to the office

Friday, July 11th, 2008

I had my one month follow-up appointment with my neurosurgeon on Tuesday – got told again: “gold star for recovery” so far! They are very happy with my progress, and gave me clearance to start physical therapy, allowed to take baths/start walking in pools, increasing weight I can lift, doing a bit more, and increasing amount of time sitting. Still no dog-walking, vacuuming, dishes, lawn-mowing, or most laundry for another month or two though – too much strain when being pulled, turning, and bending over. I am so far 100% happy that I went through with the surgery – I am so much better off than I was with the back and leg pain from the get-go.

So all week, I have been working on the amount of time I can sit at once at a chair, while just getting up to walk around every 15 minutes or so, but avoiding major laying-down sessions (which always relieves the pain around the incision spot).

I’ve been able to improve quite a bit, so following doctor’s suggestion, I am going to start going into office today, finally. I’ve been working at home full-time, but for next week or so, I am going to switch to half-days in office, half-days at home, with physical therapy 2x a week as well. That way, I continue to push towards getting back to “normal” (which may take 3 months or so to fully feel), can continue to be productive at work, yet still provide my back some down time by taking advantage of the comforts of working from home, while at the same time having face-time to work with my team and others. My body will tell me when it’s ready for full-time days. Hopefully soon, but the doc did caution me to take it slow and steady.

I am excited to get back – it’s been a long path of pain and recovery!

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in health, Pure Networks | 1 Comment »

Working From Home

Monday, June 30th, 2008

E-mail I just sent to work:

“Hey All…

Just a quick update on my status.

Recovery is continuing to go well, and I am now able to sit long enough to make it worthwhile to start working from home again (so I can work from both chair and laying flat as needed, as too much sitting is still not good for me). Trust me, I am getting bored not working :)

As such, my plan is:
1) I am going to come into office for an hour this morning to catch up with everyone, and to figure out where all of the projects are at (so I know where to focus on for working from home)
2) I’ll be working from home starting today, until at least July 8th (next Tuesday), when I have my one-month followup with the neurosurgeon. I’ll know more about my medical clearance to work from office once I meet with him.
3) I’ll be available via phone and email while I am at home. Feel free to call me for anything needed and to call me into any meetings I am needed at.

See you this morning!

- Aaron”

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in health, Pure Networks | 1 Comment »

Recovery so far

Monday, June 16th, 2008

Recovery has gone very well so far – having Joelle, my mother, and my sister to take care of things makes it really easy! I’ve been resting, laying flat on my back (or occasionally, on my side) for most of the time, with occasional walking around. Most importantly, no pain pills since Friday. I am still taking it very easy, and plan on taking a while more off from work, per doctor’s orders. If I start working at all, I (as most patients do, so my doctor warned me) know I’ll push myself too much, making the chance of re-herniation much more likely, which would be very bad.

Walking has been going real well so far – I can do about a half-hour before tiring out and needing to come home and rest. I can sit for about 10-15 minutes, but then need to stop. That’s mostly due to the incision though – once the stitches come out on Thursday, it should be much better.

I’ve also been doing a ton of reading – so might as well post my recent reading lists, as I have done in the past. What I’ve read:

Next on reading list:

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in books, health | No Comments »

Just like 1997 all over again: The Cup and The Hospital

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008

Just like 1997 all over again: The Cup and The Hospital photo nhl drake war top thumbBack in 1997, as I left school for the summer, I ended up with a pretty acute case of mono, which forced me to have a couple of stints in the hospital. During the first case, the Detroit Red Wings won their first Stanley Cup since 1995 – I remember being extremely jealous of all of my friends who were out partying that night while I was hooked up to an IV.

Fast forward to 2008 – the Detroit Red Wings just won their 11th Stanley Cup! Which of course means I have a medical issue to deal with – my leg pain and back pain I have been discussing just isn’t getting better, and we need to ensure there’s no long term nerve damage in my foot or ankle from the nerve irritation. So after a couple doctor’s appointments (neurosurgeon and orthopedist) yesterday to get opinions, and a realization  that any more doctors were not going to give us a new non-surgical direction to try, we scheduled myself for a lumbar microdiscectomy on Wednesday, June 11th (time to be determined the day before), at Swedish Medical Center’s Neurological Science Center with the neurosurgeon (Dr. Peter Nora), to hopefully remove this pain from my back (literally!)

Just like 1997 all over again: The Cup and The Hospital photo micro thumbYou can either have a neurosurgeon or an orthopedist do this; we feel more comfortable with the neurosurgeon, both personally, and professionally. As I’ve told people: “If someone is operating anywhere near my nerves, I’d rather it be someone who works on the brain, not the hand!” That said, this is reportedly, and I’ve done a bunch of research along with the doctor’s words, a fairly common, routine procedure – it is not the kind of “back surgery” you hear people so often discussing having lifetimes of issues, etc… Obviously, there’s no guarantees, but isn’t a metal rod implant, or a fusion, or anything overly scary – it takes about a half hour under the knife, and if I wanted, I could likely head home that day to start recovery. We are planning on having me stay the night for one night, just as a precaution, which the doctor recommended in any case.

Notes, including videos, descriptions, guides:

Looking forward to getting healthy soon!

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in health, sports | 1 Comment »

Peering into my Spine

Sunday, May 11th, 2008

<Warning: Anatomy Images ahead – stop reading if you don’t like seeing them – not really graphic though>

My leg pain is getting a bit better, day by day – I was actually able to walk around for about 25 minutes yesterday, along with handling a short car ride. Go steroids go! (albeit, I still can’t feel my foot at all, but I can only ask for so much, can I?). The plan is to be in the office for the first time, in a while, tomorrow. We’ll see how that goes – hopefully, I pass with flying colors. That will make me feel much better, or at least, normal!

As part of this process, I had an MRI done last Friday for 2 purposes. One was to confirm the diagnosis of the ruptured disc. The second was to provide good visuals for the radiologists who performed the epidural on me last Thursday. (For more on that, see my previous post: averbuch.net/2008/05/07/nervous-system-updated-and-out-of-whack/)

Since I had the MRI done at a different facility than the epidural (or my orthopedist) due to time efficiency, I was given a CD of the results to carry from place to place (doctor’s prefer to see the actual images over faxed copies, obviously). Joelle, who has never been trained on MRI reading but has much better knowledge on anatomy than I do, took a look through all of the images for me this morning and pointed out a couple that show the disc issue quite well. In the name of “there’s no privacy on the internet anymore”, I figured I might as well post them for people to see :)

A couple of notes while you are looking at my back:

  • The MRI makes the body look so cartoony. It’s sort of funny looking.
  • I circled the key parts in Red in both pictures.
  • Click on the pictures to see the images larger.
Peering into my Spine photo mri3 thumb Peering into my Spine photo mri2 thumb
Notice the bulging disc sticking out from the vertebrae and hitting the spinal cord. That’s my current “resting state” – even that’s not good. If you notice the other discs, they are all normally-placed – it is the one that is causing me issues. Here’s a great shot of a “pain” period. Pretty clear that the disc is hitting spinal cord and the nerves. Ouch :)

Tags:, , ,
Posted in health | No Comments »