THE HOSPITAL.

Well, recovery is a million times worse than I thought it would be. I don't remember everything that happened in the hospital, and maybe that is a good thing. What I do remember is this: an unfathomable kind of pain that never stopped. I felt it from the moment I woke up to the moment I attempted to sleep.

A significant amount of pain came from the incisions. The incision on my belly is about 5" and verticle to the left of my naval. Because the surgeon cut through the abdominal wall, muscle, and arteries to expose the anterior vertabrae, I came out of surgery swollen, as if I swallowed a watermelon or was suddenly eight months pregnant. I am not exaggerating. Also to access my posterior vertebrae I was hanging downwards from the waist; my face swelled to moon-sized proportions. I was full of tubes: oxygen tubes, catheters, drainage tubes. I asked my family why they didn't take any pictures. Their response: We couldn't bear to ever see you like that again.

If you are contemplating this surgery, prepare to be your own advocate for post-operative care, and make sure that someone in your family or a friend will be your advocate when you cannot. I kept running out of morphine and was in terrible pain all the time. I remember being on my side hanging to the hospital bed rails with white knuckles praying that someone, anyone, would make this stop. My family was tenacious and unstoppable when it came to getting me the things I needed and I can never thank them enough. My family is the reason why I can have a hopeful outlook on life today; the reason why I healed so well; the reason why I made the tough decision to proceed with this surgery. I knew they'd be there.

It took the entire time I was in the hospital for the severe abdominal swelling to subside. I was in so much pain I did not have much of an appetite - I think I had some ice cream with cherries on top and a piece of French toast with syrup the whole five days I was admitted. I also got a chest rattle due to the morphine - it slows your respirations and makes it easy to contract pneumonia - and had to go on respiration therapy. A therapist came in every four hours and had me breathe a mixture of medicines through a tube. Hard to do when you are knocked out on morphine.

Speaking of therapists, I saw a slew of them. I had a respiratory therapist, an occupational therapist and a physical therapist visit me over those five days. The occupational therapist taught me how to put on my brace (see previous posts for a picture of that sexy little number) and get in and out of my bed and chairs. The physical therapist (who was absolutely darling) visited every day to teach me to move with my shiny new walker and the brace. This was the hardest thing I had to do: you lose a significant amount of muscle and stamina after surgery, more than you can imagine. The first walk I did only got me two rooms down the hall and back before I was exhausted. A "hospitalist" visited every day, although he never came within ten feet of me. My anesthesiologist visited the day after surgery, and my doctor visited a few times to write orders (I had a catheter in my neck and a drainage tube coming out my back above the three verticle lumbar incisions that needed to be check, removed, etc.). I remember my anesthesiologist, an extremely attractive man, saying to me before surgery "I will take care of you as if you are my wife, and I really love my wife." I am certain it is mutual, sir.

I was finally discharged (after dealing for hours with a totally incompetent case manager who wanted to admit me to a rehabilitation hospital - my husband put a quick end to that idea) after fulfilling some important post-operative criteria (urinating). It was great to know I was going home to my own space, my own bed, anything familiar.

If you are contemplating this surgery: prepare to have as much back pain or more than you did before, prepare to have significant pain at the many incision sites, prepare to be weak, prepare to drop some weight from lack of appetite (I dropped 15 pounds). Most importantly, don't expect to feel better instantly - it doesn't work that way. Feeling better takes some time and some patience, but I did feel better.