Today Wednesday the 25th of November 2015 is the day I had TLIF surgery for my spine. The surgery was done by Dr Shim and Dr Choi of the Wooridul spine clinic and was conducted at the Saudi German Hospital in Barsha.
The surgery was scheduled for 12:30 in the afternoon and we had to check in at 10:30 in the morning for preparations and pre op procedures. I dropped Rohan to school in the morning and came back home to get ready to go to hospital.
Till about half an hour before we got in the car I was still undecided whether how is going to have the surgery or not because I was afraid of all the negatives that I read on several forums and blog posts. So, for those of you who are considering surgery, the second thoughts, the fear of the unknown outcome does not really go away. Not until you have put together the final ounce of courage to walk into the Pre-Op prep room and get it done. Just a word of advice from someone who didn't have a clear head till the very morning of the surgery – don't let anyone else, not your family, not friends, and certainly NOT google throw you off. Deep inside you know when you really need it – and just go through with it. Easy does it.
One more point. If you are feeling really anxious, worried, fearful, whatever, and have access to a calming med of some sort (Ativan, Valium, whatever), that helps. It just takes the edge off. Clears the mind. Gives you a calm sense of purpose.
I remember that what was important to us to get this fixed once and for all and I was going to do it and be brave rather than chicken out and not go for it. The last thing I had to say to Rohan Roy that I was going to have the surgery and he said yes. Go ahead and do it.
The first part of the surgery was getting through the process of anesthetics. Now because I have a somewhat restricted throat situation it did narrower than normal they had to go into my nose with a process called fiber optic nasal intubation. Apparently the process is a little bit more complicated than normal intubation to the throat so it was done by the head of department – the professor who actually is the top guy and Saudi German Hospital department. I must admit that he was fantastic. From the moment he said hi to me outside the OT to the time that I was wheeled in and actually under must have been about 5 minutes. I remember him saying hi and after that I told him that it was hurting a little bit when he tried to push the narrow fiber optic cable up my nose and while I was swirling the lidocaine paste around my mouth I actually passed out because they must have given me an anesthetic of some sort through my wrist while this whole intubation was going on. That's all I remember.
Honestly, that is all I remember.
Five hours later they wheeled me to my room (336) and hooked me up with a variety of IV pipes including a mild pain killer, and saline. I I also was hooked up to a PCA supply of morphine. This was meant to be Patient Activated but I barely really used it.
This post is not complete. I am going to fill in a lot more on this post...
The surgery was scheduled for 12:30 in the afternoon and we had to check in at 10:30 in the morning for preparations and pre op procedures. I dropped Rohan to school in the morning and came back home to get ready to go to hospital.
Till about half an hour before we got in the car I was still undecided whether how is going to have the surgery or not because I was afraid of all the negatives that I read on several forums and blog posts. So, for those of you who are considering surgery, the second thoughts, the fear of the unknown outcome does not really go away. Not until you have put together the final ounce of courage to walk into the Pre-Op prep room and get it done. Just a word of advice from someone who didn't have a clear head till the very morning of the surgery – don't let anyone else, not your family, not friends, and certainly NOT google throw you off. Deep inside you know when you really need it – and just go through with it. Easy does it.
One more point. If you are feeling really anxious, worried, fearful, whatever, and have access to a calming med of some sort (Ativan, Valium, whatever), that helps. It just takes the edge off. Clears the mind. Gives you a calm sense of purpose.
I remember that what was important to us to get this fixed once and for all and I was going to do it and be brave rather than chicken out and not go for it. The last thing I had to say to Rohan Roy that I was going to have the surgery and he said yes. Go ahead and do it.
The first part of the surgery was getting through the process of anesthetics. Now because I have a somewhat restricted throat situation it did narrower than normal they had to go into my nose with a process called fiber optic nasal intubation. Apparently the process is a little bit more complicated than normal intubation to the throat so it was done by the head of department – the professor who actually is the top guy and Saudi German Hospital department. I must admit that he was fantastic. From the moment he said hi to me outside the OT to the time that I was wheeled in and actually under must have been about 5 minutes. I remember him saying hi and after that I told him that it was hurting a little bit when he tried to push the narrow fiber optic cable up my nose and while I was swirling the lidocaine paste around my mouth I actually passed out because they must have given me an anesthetic of some sort through my wrist while this whole intubation was going on. That's all I remember.
Honestly, that is all I remember.
Five hours later they wheeled me to my room (336) and hooked me up with a variety of IV pipes including a mild pain killer, and saline. I I also was hooked up to a PCA supply of morphine. This was meant to be Patient Activated but I barely really used it.
This post is not complete. I am going to fill in a lot more on this post...
This video is from my hospital bed: https://youtu.be/gCN4aiKG9sE
And here is what it looks like with the 'hardware' i place: The two titanium rods, the predicle scres, and the cages in between (cages is what replaces the degenerated disk)...
And here is what it looks like with the 'hardware' i place: The two titanium rods, the predicle scres, and the cages in between (cages is what replaces the degenerated disk)...
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