But let's back up to surgery day. After I got home I parked myself on the couch, had a light dinner, visited with Diane who'd brought me some flowers, and finally felt enough pain in my back to warrant some Tramadol. Of course I was really wary of taking anything thanks to how barfy I got from most everything I tried in the months leading up to this, but along with the pain meds I was also sent home with a prescription for an anti-nausea medication; I took both and fell asleep.
On Tuesday I woke up feeling crummy but not barfy, so I continued with the pain meds. Really it wasn't that bad but considering I'd spent enough time at 10 on the pain scale in the early months of the herniation, I decided to not go there if I could help it. The pain was mostly located in my back but I still had a little bit in my leg from the nerve. The other oddball thing was that I'd be perfectly still, standing or lying down, and I'd get the biggest ZAP of pain - it'd take my breath away for a moment. This was the nerve reacting to surgery, yay. When that happened for the first time I was glad I hadn't started tapering off Gabapentin just yet. I needed as much help as I could get for that nerve. It wasn't something that warranted taking Tramadol because it was too unpredictable - the zaps would just happen whenever they felt like happening.
Wednesday was my worst day with pain from the surgery - the incision area hurt plus my back ached pretty bad. That was the day I could also remove the dressing covering the incision, and even though it was covered with steri strips, I could see some deep red bruises forming. But hey, I got to take a shower, so that was great. Although it was also a challenge since the post-op instructions said to not let the shower spray hit the incision. I was paranoid that I'd accidentally turn with my back to the spray out of habit...let's face it, at 56 I've been showering for a lot of years without any thought going into which way I should be facing. I made it through that OK, feeling both better as well as beat afterward. I took the pain meds and for the first time since surgery on Monday, took the muscle relaxer that I'd gone home with - and side note, let's hear it for an in-hospital pharmacy who filled everything and sent it up to recovery; one less errand for Jeff to do afterward.
On Thursday I felt so much better that I only ended up taking half the dose of the muscle relaxer before I went to bed; no pain meds. I thought that was really great - I've had so many pain meds in my system this year that not needing anything was better than good. The zaps continued.
I spent the rest of the week and weekend feeling sore from the actual back surgery but overall not too bad all things considered. I was trying very hard to rest and not do the things that were on the forbidden list for the first two weeks. These consisted of:
- No bending forward beyond a 45 degree angle
- No twisting side to side
- No lifting anything over 15 lbs and if I had to carry something, to hold it close to my abdomen
- No driving
- No exercise or physical therapy
- And the big kicker, no sitting for longer than 20 minutes at a time
Which leads me to week two. On Monday I woke up and felt like myself again. I walked with my normal stride and while my back hurt a little, it mostly only bothered me getting on or off of something, like the couch or bed. And yes, I was still getting zaps of pain, yay.
But then came Tuesday. I woke up feeling good again, carefully swung my feet off the bed to start my day, took a step, and pain shot through my leg like fire. After catching my breath, I realized that this wasn't a zap of pain but rather, it was the same nerve pain in the same area - groin, front of thigh, and top of knee - that I'd been dealing with since this entire thing began back in March.
As you might imagine, I started going there: the surgery didn't work, I'd accidentally bent too often, I'd twisted and messed it up...it was not a good place to be. Not only did this continue, but it started hurting worse than before the surgery. At the same time, I realized that the zaps were easing up and by Thursday I had my last one. Which meant that the irritation on the nerve from the surgery had stopped, and the nerve pain in my leg was an indication of a failed discectomy. It was hard not to think otherwise.
The pain continued to increase in intensity and duration. My despair was ramping up because if this didn't work, was I stuck living with nerve pain for the rest of my life? Jeff was trying to stay positive but even he got a little down as the leg pain happened again and again and again. There's a bit of a stigma with having back surgery as it's one of the more notorious in terms of failing, or being worse off than before, so you can probably understand why things looked bleaker and bleaker to us as I continued to hurt.
I had my two-week follow up appointment with the PA on Tuesday afternoon. I was blunt in telling him that not only was I hurting, but that I was hurting worse than before. He reassured me that I didn't screw it up with random accidental bending or twisting but rather, my nerve was extra irritated thanks to the disc fragment pressing on it, and then with the act of removing the disc fragment. He said it's not common to have an increase in intensity of nerve pain after a discectomy, but it's also not unheard of, either. I'm in the 10 - 20% of people who experience this. Of course I am.
My PA told me to continue with the bending and twisting limitations, and that I still should not start physical therapy or exercising, beyond walking as tolerated, for another two weeks. He also offered to prescribe a round of steroids to help speed this process along, which I jumped at. Anything to stop this pain. He thinks the steroids will get enough inflammation reduced that I should begin to feel better over the weekend. Please let that be the case!
So that's where I'm at as of about two and a half weeks post surgery. It hasn't been the miracle cure where I woke up with the nerve pain gone, and all I needed to do was recover from having back surgery; nope not at all. But my hopes are up once again and this time, I hope they stay up.
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