This Broken Mess of a Life

So, it's been 6 months since my surgery! Seems like a good time for a little update.

Some notes on my recovery up to this point: I had my 3 month follow up last week ( which, technically, was more like 3 months and two weeks ) and my doctor said things looked " Awesome ". As usually, that was a HUUUUGE relief to hear. I'm an anxious person by nature ( working on that ) and so the entire time between my first post-op x ray and the one last week I was just worried " oh the hardware is shifting " or " what if it's not fusing "....but it's all going well! PHEW! It's made me really grateful that I got strong and healthier prior to surgery. Looking back several years, when I first had the idea of surgery and my doctor at the time said " You're too young, no one will operate on you ", I'm actually grateful for that. I think my recovery would have been much harder if I was weaker and heavier. The first week, especially, would have been so much rougher if I had been weaker. I can't even imagine what those f...

Spinal Fusion Surgery – L5S1 Fusion Surgery Day I’ve never really written in much detail about my surgery day and all the specifics about being in the hospital so I thought I’d spell all that out for anyone curious or wondering what it’s like.

I read a lot of different stories online about what I might need for my recovery, so I thought I'd write up a little summary of the things I bought and needed, as well as the level of personal help I needed from my family during my recovery.

Another topic I was wondering about prior to my surgery and that I've seen a lot of discussions started about is medications during recovery. What do you get, how much do you get, and are you going to get addicted. In my first few cursory searches about meds after surgery, I got really concerned about addiction. Getting put on narcotic pain killers for months didn't sound appealing to me. In my case, most of the commonly prescribed pain killers make me vomit. Through trial and error over the past few years, I learned that Percoset won't make me barf. But that's all I had experience with. Let me take a few steps back.....

I was curious if surgery would make me lose weight. On one hand, you put your body through this major trauma and it has to heal itself, so you'd think it would cause a degree of weight loss. On the other hand, you are laying around for months so you'd assume that would negate that weight loss and maybe even cause weight gain. I randomly googled it one morning before my surgery and, apparently, LOTS of people ask this question and have LOTS of very interesting opinions about it. So what the heck....I'll throw in mine ( along with my experience thus far ).