Microdiscectomy Day

Two years ago to the day I was recovering from my Microdiscectomy. I look back at this day with a mixture of emotions and I have often thought about writing this post in that time but held back, I’m not really sure why.  My husband reminded me this morning that it was two years since my operation,  I guess now is as good a time as any to write about it.

Rewind to the morning of 25th July 2014. I was a new Mum for the second time to my beautiful three week old baby boy, trying to muddle through everything that comes with that, whilst not being able to move due to my prolapsed disc and feeling pretty crappy because of this.  Every maternal instinct in me was calling out to be able to do more, to be more for my baby and here I was in hospital, about to have an operation which would render me even more useless for at least 6 weeks.

I went to hospital first thing in the morning to have my spinal surgery.  I was in a side room on my own due to the fact that I had just had a baby.  This room had a bathroom in it which I spent most of the morning before my operation hiding in so I could cry without my husband or new baby seeing me.  I was second on the list which I was grateful for as it would be over sooner rather than later.  But with this thought came a number of worries, what if something goes wrong?  This was all happening right next to my spine after all, I had every confidence in my surgeon but we’re all human aren’t we?  What if something slipped, what if I ended up in a worse situation than before?  What if I didn’t wake up from the anaesthetic?  All these thoughts were rushing through my head at a million miles an hour and I was terrified.

I didn’t want to let on to anyone close to me how scared I was.  I felt that me and my gorgeous boy had done so well after he was born that we’d used up our fair share of luck.  If something bad was going to happen then this was the prime opportunity for it all to go boobs up.  I got into my hospital gown and I waited to be taken to the operating theatre imagining all sorts of rubbish situations.

A few hours later I woke up in recovery feeling like I had been in a fight.  I remember saying to the Nurse that I felt like I had a fat lip.  When I was put to sleep I was laying on my back but for the operation I would have been placed on my front and at some point the tubes in my mouth must have been knocked and I had a fat lip to wake up to.  However, the fact that this was my first thought as I woke up and I didn’t have any pain in my back was encouraging to say the least.

I was taken back to my room and the hubster and baby were waiting for me, my other two children were with their Nana having a great time.  I was so relieved to see them waiting for me but I was not quite with it yet so I don’t remember much about those first hours.  At some point my surgeon came to see us to say that everything had gone well.  I couldn’t believe it, jammy cow had got through the op and it went well!  I had to lie as still as possible for the rest of the day and overnight and then the Nurses would get me up in the morning.  I was so uncomfortable.  At home, even when it hurt to move at least I could move a little bit to try and get comfortable.  Not being allowed to move at all was torture.  To add salt to the wounds, I remember gymnastics being on the TV in my room.  Brilliant, lets watch these flexible things jump around the screen while I can’t friggin move!  The hubster and baby had gone home at this point and there was no remote control so I just had to grin and jealously bear it until a Nurse came in and changed the channel for me when she brought me my little paper cup of pain killers.

 

Having just had a baby there were things going on in my body that wouldn’t be going on in the bodies of your typical microdiscectomy patients.  I had taken my breast pump in with me to express milk for my baby, but because I was given Tramadol after the operation I wasn’t allowed to give any milk I managed to express to my little one.  I have always found expressing milk difficult with both my twins and my new baby.  By the time I was able to  have a go at expressing my boobs were fit to burst.  Trying to express milk whilst lying down and not being able to move is an absolute nightmare!  It is probably just as well that I knew none of it could be used as half of it ended up all over me anyway in a sticky mess, thank goodness for baby wipes! It did hurt watching the Nurse pour away the rest of my efforts though, it was so hard to get it that it felt like I was watching her pour away liquid gold.

To add to the comedy of errors, I also hadn’t thought my breakfast choice through properly for the next day.  ‘Go on, treat yourself’, I thought as I put a tick in the box next to the cooked breakfast option.  ‘Muppet’, I thought when it arrived and I realised that I couldn’t sit up to eat it.  The Nurse was ace and cut it up for me but it was all a bit of a disaster and I gave up on the good stuff and stuck with a simple, but very welcome, piece of toast.

After a bed bath and a really awkward moment getting dressed by the Nurses whilst laying down (it was really difficult), the Nurses and Physio came to get me up and out of bed.  I was so nervous about this.  I just couldn’t see how, after 7 months of not being able to stand up straight, that I was going to be any different less than 24 hours after my op.  I had been instructed on how I needed to roll on to my side and then drop my legs over the edge of the bed so I could push myself up to sitting.  I did this and then, with a Nurse either side supporting me, I stood up.

My first thought was ‘I’m tall’, and I had a little bit of a head rush.  I am not particularly tall in real life but I could stand up!!!!  I could stand up without being stooped over like the Evil Queen from Snow White when she disguises herself as a haggard old woman to give Snow White the poison apple.  This was bloody amazing!

I then took steps, actual standing up straight steps, along the ward corridor.  Well, this was a revelation, my body was working with me for the first time in a long time and it was brilliant.

“Shall we try walking up and down three steps?” my Nurse asked.

“Yes, lets go for it”, I was on a roll.

And I did it.

My husband was walking behind me holding our baby and when I saw him he had a massive smile on his face.

The operation had worked.  It had all been worth it.

I still had a long way to go but I can’t really describe the feeling of standing up and walking, albeit supported either side by Nurses, for the first time in 7 months.  It was better than Christmas, and I love Christmas.

I was still on the morphine and I spent one more night in hospital before they let me go home.  We moved back in with my Mum temporarily for the extra support while I recovered.  My lovely hospital bed was still there so it really was the best place for me to be as well as the fact that it was now the summer holidays and my twins and the hubster were off school.  Spending this time together and watching my boys bond with their baby brother was really special.

I did struggle with how slowly my recovery seemed to take.  But there were so many little milestones for me, simple things like standing up on my own to brush my teeth, things that you wouldn’t even think about usually, to keep me going.  I had to remind myself that every day I was getting better and a day closer to getting back to normal and being a fully fledged Mummy again.

Although I could stand up and take steps I still couldn’t lift my baby myself.  My special time with him was each night after his final feed, which I had to do lying down on my side as I couldn’t sit up long enough to breastfeed him.  The hubster would put him on my chest and we would lie together until he fell asleep and was then put into his cot.  I spoke earlier about not being able to act on my maternal instincts and I still can’t really think about the effect this had on me without feeling really emotional about it, I don’t think I ever will if I’m honest.  It would rip my heart out to hear him cry and for someone else to pick him up and have that first moment of comforting him before they gave him to me.  I was worried about how this would effect our Mother and Son relationship and as a result I have struggled with anxiety for the past two years and have been getting treatment for it for the past 9 months, once I plucked up the courage to go to the doctors about it.  However, I am happy to say that I have a very loving, happy two year old and we adore each other.  We’ve gone through so much together, even though he won’t remember any of it, we’re a team.

After six weeks I was able to do more.  The first time the five of us went out together as a family was wonderful, we only went to the shop but to me it was amazing just to be with them and not in pain in a wheelchair.

I cannot thank my amazing surgeon and all the Nurses who helped me enough.  The NHS is brilliant.

Once I had stopped taking Morphine four months later, I spent my maternity leave getting stronger, and I went back to work a year ago.  Although there have been bumps in the road, I’ve kept going and I am so grateful every day for being able to walk and move and dance (badly).  I’m still not as strong as I was before my prolapsed disc but I’m getting there.  I have days where I’m stiff and my back twinges but I’m doing my best to look after myself and I know that I will get my fitness back.  After 7 months of not walking there is a lot of work to do but I’m happy to be able to do it.  I can walk my boys to school and I can push my toddler in his buggy.  I can go out for coffee without being in pain and I can go out with friends and celebrate all the good things in life.

I am wife and Mummy again.

I am me again and I bloody love it xxx

 

 

Morphine, a hospital bed & a wheelchair = ‘The Dream Team’

16th May 2014

Over the last few weeks I have had lots of hospital appointments in various departments to see many professional people.  I’ve had growth scans for the baby, seen obstetric consultants, obstetric anaesthetists, physiotherapists and orthopaedic consultants.

Some weeks I  have felt like a permanent fixture in the waiting areas and I have even bought a new tote bag to carry around my hand held pregnancy notes (I say carry, I mean sit on my lap as I’m pushed around on my wheels).  I really like bags so this was no hardship.

The reality of the situation is that I am not going to make it to the full 40 weeks.  Although things have improved greatly due to having my lovely hospital bed at my Mum’s house and my pain relief changing from a low, pregnancy safe, dose of Codeine and Morphine to the more constant pain relief of slow release Morphine, I need to have surgery on my back soon.

If I had not been pregnant this surgery probably would have taken place about 8 weeks ago.  I need to have a Microdiscectomy which means that the surgeon will operate on my lower back.  He’ll go in with a microscope and take the part of the L5 disc that is pressing on my S1 nerve, causing all of my pain, away.  For this to happen I need to be out cold under a general anaesthetic for about an hour and a half.  If I am under an anaesthetic then so is the baby in my tummy and it’s just a little bit too risky, so the decision has been made to wait until I have the baby and then I can have my back surgery a few days later.

Scary biscuits!!!

At the end of March my pain had got so bad that I was admitted into hospital overnight while they tried to figure out what to do with me.

Pregnancy and prolapsed discs do not mix well as I can’t take any anti-inflammatory medications and some of the pain relief I would normally have been prescribed were definite no no’s for me too.

I have slipped a disc before, when my twins were around 9 months old.  I was able to take Diclofenac, Codeine and Amitriptyline and these, along with regular chiropractor appointments, meant that I was back to normal within a couple of months.  It did mean that I had to sell my tickets to the Take That Circus tour, this was a bad day.  At that time I could only lie on the floor, so when I felt like I wanted to have a full on tantrum due to selling my tickets, I was well placed to do so.  Being able to kick my legs around and bang my fists on the floor would have had a better effect, as it was I just had to lie still and look unimpressed.

This hospital stay this time around was a real blessing in the end as it introduced me to a full night’s sleep, courtesy of an electric hospital bed.  I loved being able to get into a position where I could feel slightly normal and not have the piercing, burning pain constantly.

I was assessed by physios, anaesthetists and orthopaedic surgeons.  I thought at one point that they were going to give me a type of long lasting epidural to combat the evil pain but it was decided that this would not be suitable as I needed to be aware of the pain getting worse in case things got really bad and I became a candidate for emergency surgery!  Never did I think I could feel so disappointed and upset about not having a massive needle stuck into my back.

There really wasn’t very much that could be done for me in hospital, due to me being preggers, so I was sent home the next day with a frame for the toilet and a perching stool to help me get washed and brush my teeth.  Seeing as we were at the point where either my husband or my Mum were having to help me have a bed bath each day, I looked at these aids as big pots of gold at the end of a bad back rainbow.  And they are amazing.  A good friend of mine pointed out that some celebs have been embracing the old lady look recently, dyeing their hair grey and going out in pimped up wheelchairs (Lady Gaga), so I figure I’m just ahead of the times and everyone will be rocking a perching stool pretty soon.

Three days after being discharged from hospital things got pretty bad again.  I couldn’t sleep at all due to the pain.  I couldn’t get away from it, there were no positions I could lie in to feel any respite and I couldn’t walk the 8 steps to the toilet without hyperventilating.  I spent about 3 hours crying constantly and uncontrollably as it was all that I could do.  I like to think that I have a high pain threshold but this had beaten me.  My husband was on the phone to the hospital and my GP but there wasn’t really anything anyone could do for me.

What was it that had happened in hospital that made me feel a little better?  The hospital bed!  The genius piece of technology that meant I could lie in a secure position without having to prop myself up on pesky pillows that would rearrange themselves at a moments’ notice, inducing excruciating pain.

My GP, who has been wonderful, got on the phone that afternoon and arranged for a hospital bed to be delivered to my Mum’s house the following day and it has been a revelation.  This was also when my medication was changed to the slow release Morphine and, for me, they have been the dream team.  The ultimate combination of pain relief that has said “Screw you prolapsed disc, we’re winning now!”  My super heroes!

Eight weeks on and due to these amazing aids that I have been provided with by the wonderful NHS, I have regained a bit of independence and even managed to go back to my own house for a few days.

I’m hoping that all this means that I’ll be able to keep this little one in his cosy little temporary home for a bit longer before he is born and has to go into the Special Care Baby Unit to help him be weaned off the Morphine that I have to take.  I have another scan and consultant appointment next week and I have my fingers crossed that they’ll let me try to keep him in the bump until at least 36 weeks before they induce me. We also have to consider whether I am going to try to have him naturally or have a C-section.  I might leave that one to the professionals as when I think about it too much it makes my brain hurt.

It’s funny that when I was pregnant with my twins I was considered high risk and had been prepared for all sorts of things to go wrong and in the end I had an amazingly straight forward pregnancy and uncomplicated, natural birth.  When I found out we were pregnant with just the one this time I thought that it would be a walk in the park and it turns out that there are even more risks and potential problems to think about, typical!

The good thing is that I can now see a light at the end of this very long tunnel and I am focussing on that.  I may not be sure of exactly how things are going to pan out, how well my baby will be, how successfully my back surgery will go, but there is an end in sight.

I can’t wait to be able to walk around in the sunshine, pushing my new baby boy in his pram with his brothers scooting along by my side.  This may sound simple to most people but never take the little things for granted, for me this would be bliss and the day that I manage to do it will be the day I have a massive smile on my face!