I have been dealing with pain down my right leg since October of last year. I am finally scheduled for surgery with Dr. Kahn from the OSU Comprehensive Spine Center. My surgery is considered outpatient surgery now and I am expecting a 1 inch scar. That is a lot different than the overnight stay and 3 inch scar I had for the same surgery 29 years ago.
Even though it’s outpatient, less than 23 hours, I spent the night because my surgery was scheduled at 12:30 in the afternoon and that didn’t leave a lot of time for observation.
When I woke up in post op, I was expecting to be pain free down my right leg. That wasn’t the case and according to the doctor the nerve bundle was crushed, but intact. The nerve bundle will take about an extra week to recover than we originally planned, so I might be out a couple of weeks from work.
Also when I woke from anesthesia, I was more nauseous than I usual. I never vomited, but I had the dry heaves several times. They gave me something for the nausea and some morphine for the pain and that knocked me out. Unfortunately it was when Ashley, Stephanie and Shane came to visit, so I was out of it when they were there. I remember listening to them talking which made me more comfortable anyway, even I wasn’t participating in the conversation.
It took them a long time to get me a hospital room and after Nikki left, I was passed back down to the recovery room for a couple of hours, before the found me a room on the 7th floor. I was transferred into my room around 10:45 pm. At that time I was wide awake and kept Nikki up with my constant texts until she finally told me she was in bed and I had woke her up. Lucky for me my nurse, Lori was a hockey fan and grew up in Toledo, where she became a Reds Wing fan and we had lots to talk about for the next hour until I settled down again.