There's Nothing Like The Smell Of Surgery In The Morning

If you were paying attention, I referred to myself as 'broken' the other day.  Well - surprise! -  tomorrow morning at 8am I will have surgery on my neck.  My main symptom I can only describe as the same pain you get from hitting your 'funny bone',  from my neck to my fingers except it never goes away.  It is better some times and worse at other times, but it is constant.  Though my shoulder and arm feel most of the pain, there is nothing wrong with them physically.  The nerve is being pinched in my neck by a herniated disc between c6 and c7.  That disc will be removed and an implant will fuse those two vertebrae together - and they go in through the front and push my throat and soft tissue aside!

The pic above I found on google images and it looks almost exactly like what I will go through tomorrow, as I understand it.  Click on it for a slightly larger version.  I called the office on Friday, because of my pain and knowing the next step was surgery I want to get that process started as soon as possible, and I was given an appointment for this morning.  So today I spent 2 1/2 hours sitting in the doctor's office hoping they could throw this together for me.  See, turns out my surgeon is going on vacation, so if not tomorrow then April 11 is the next date available to have this done - so this means about 2 weeks of pain that I won't have to endure.  Thankfully, I think they saw the pain I was in and they didn't want me to have to wait.  Maybe my doctor would have felt guilty going on vacation knowing I was in pain, waiting for his return.  Maybe.  I'm just thankful they were able to pull it off.  I think they needed to secure the operating room first, then they had to pull some strings to secure an anesthesiologist.  That's just the gist I got, but no matter what I'm thankful to my neurosurgeon, his physicians assistant, and their hardworking nurse who I have talked to the most these last few months.  She's the one who has the huge job dealing with my insurance company and coordinating the scheduling of everything.

Unfortunately, and this speaks to the whole system, one of my biggest worries is not having any sick or vacation time to use for almost a whole year after I return to work. I had everything wiped out when I was out with my leg last fall, now I'm just about to get all my sick and vacation time back and I'm afraid they'll take it all away over the next few weeks. That reminds me of this pic.  Anyway, I'll see how that unfolds after the surgery.  The faster I get back to work the less I have to worry about that.

Hopefully I will sleep away most of the day tomorrow after the surgery, have an uneventful night, and be discharged by noon, I expect, on Thursday.  Due to the late notice my wife will have to work part of the day at least tomorrow.  All she has to do is drop me off in the morning and pick me up on Thursday morning, but I'm sure she will worry and come back to the hospital as soon as she can.  In those situations I always want her there with me but then I feel guilty because there is nothing she can really do but hold my hand and I know she is needed at work right now.  Everyone else, please don't worry about me, it is a pretty routine surgery I'm told, but I may not be blogging or talking to anyone for a few days.  I know I will feel better eventually but, man, surgery always sucks.