LAST EDITED ON Mar-03-17 AT 10:23AM (MST)[p]Jager sent me this because he knew I had this done six months ago. Doesn't seem like much helpful advice here, and I don't know how much help I will be.
But here goes...
I had a pinched nerve in my right arm that was sapping my strength and causing constant pain, sometimes very uncomfortable pain. Fortunately everyone who examined me and the MRIs said that injections weren't going to do anything for me and only surgery would help. And it has.
I went in on a Monday and I was out by Wednesday night. I would have been out Tuesday, but the lab goofed on a blood test and they thought I'd had a heart attack due to dramatically elevated liver enzymes. After more tests, they concluded the earlier blood test was a lab error, and the bonus is that now I know my heart is in really good shape.
Don't ask for the technical name of what they did because I don't know. They fused my C5, C6 and C7 after removing the disks and inserting little devices that have synthetic bone material on them to start the fusion. They are screwed into each of the vertebrae. The hardest part was the first day or so when it hurt like hell to swallow. After that I was fine. Right after waking from the surgery, I also had pain in my chest which felt like somebody had whacked me in the chest with a baseball bat. I still don't exactly what caused that, but it contributed to their belief that I'd had a heart attack.
I wore a neck brace for six weeks after. The one thing I asked about that they gave me bum dope on was washing the pads on the neck brace. They said don't do it, but there are instructions in the kit with the replacement pads that tell you how to wash them. Wish I had known that at the start because they start to get funky after awhile.
Sleeping--I could not lie down with the neck brace on. I slept on the reclining end of our couch for the duration.
My employer allowed me to work at home for a month to heal enough that the surgeon would allow me to drive. Make sure you press them for details on that, because they seemed reluctant to say just how long I would be out. In the end, they insisted on at least six weeks before I could drive, but he said he would have preferred for that to be longer. The reason being that the bone is still filling in, and that area is still fragile. He said it would take six months for the fusion to be full strength. They had one person who insisted on driving earlier and when she got rear-ended in a collision, she had to have another surgery because the screws got ripped out.
Although my employer was accommodating, HR insisted on having the details in writing from the surgeon. Liability and litigation being what they are these days...
It has now been nearly six months and I'm getting strength back in my arm and my grip strength back. I've always had a very strong grip after three years of rolling newspapers every day as a kid, and it was frustrating to have no strength in my strong hand. Before rain storms I still feel some twinges of pain in the arm, but nothing like before, and there is still a bit of numbness in the right index finger, which they said would be the last thing that would go away.
You'll want a chair for your bathtub so that you can sit and take a shower. You'll want non-skid in the bottom of your bathtub so you don't slip and fall while you can't look down. I never needed what I call the sock spoon. I guess I'm flexible enough that I was able to get my socks on and off without bending my head down.
I will add more details about my hospital stay later, which may be entertaining to some who have sick minds (e.g., Jagerdad).
One thing I'm unsure about is whether I can now go back to using my heavy recoil firearms. I think so, but I would welcome input from anyone else.
Darth Vader was a sap.
J/K
