Spinal Fusion Surgery

Apparently, late last April I found out that I have a major case of scoliosis. My family and friends describe the X-rays of my spine as "snake-like," or "serpent-shaped." It's literally in the shape of a long letter "S." The degrees of each curvature are 65 and 75, and both are classified as "severe."

Pic of X-ray:


It was diagnosed last year when I had a 105.4 fever, and went to the hospital for treatment. An X-ray of my chest was taken to see if I had any fluid in my lungs, and that's when they saw my spine. In addition, the spinal curvature blocked my left lung, putting me at high risk of pneumonia, which could've been a disaster (perhaps even fatal) at that time.

Shortly after this ordeal, I had a physical specifically aiming to diagnose the severity of my scoliosis. They announced that I had to have surgery, or it would progress into an inoperative state, resulting in back pain, fatigue, and lung conditions for the rest of my life. Obviously, me and my family decided the surgery would be best for my health. The surgery is a fairly new and developing surgery, called "spinal fusion." They make an incision down my back, grind away bone matter from my hip/ribs, physically straighten my spine, graft the problematic vertebrae together with the bone matter, then insert four metal rods along the spinal column.

The result will be a permanently straight spine, a 4-6 inch increase in height, morphine for 3 days, and painkillers for a couple months. I'll be immobilized and helpless for the first three days, and it will take me about a week to relearn how to walk and stand. Needless to say, I'm not looking forward to the zero-privacy thing. I'll be out of school/work until February 18th at the earliest. I have no idea how long I'll be offline. Until then, I'll be reading Crisis & Scarecrow ( ) and The Kite. Probably better for my health than being on the computer, anyway .

Recently, I had to autologously donate my blood, twice. The first time wasn't bad, but the second time (last friday), I temporarily went blind and almost fainted, which sucked. Apparently, it's not natural to donate two pints of blood in one week, which is why they only allow donors to donate once every two months .

However, this is a major surgery, and I've never had surgery for as long as I can remember (the reason I say this is because I had surgery as an infant to remove a benign tumor). The pain is obviously going to be immense, and there are risks to the surgery. An infection from the surgery could be devastating to my health, and it's a 10% possibility.

I'll be going into the hospital on January 3rd for preparation, and under the knife the next day. For anyone who has had a major surgery like this, advice or experience explanation would help ease my nervousness. It calms me to know that I am not the only one who has to go through something like this.

I don't have any major surgery, so I can help
The only thing I can do, it's to whish you good luck and do not worry everything will be ok after

That Just looks like it hurts. However you better get well. You owe it to yourself more than anything.

I am sorry that i cant be of help. I can just wish you a happy new year and hope that you will get better.

The support helps, thank you .

Xlrp, it does get sore every once in a while, but it doesn't necessarily hurt. Some people say it looks like someone took a hammer to the side of my spine. O_o

That really stinks, though it's ironic that people say it's shaped like a snake, and this is a vore forum, heh heh... [/badjoke]

Well, man, I have confidence you'll make it through.

When medicine is involved, science is the place to go.

I wish you the best.

Wow... that sounds like quite a party...

I'm sorry that you have to go through with that. It's not the kind of thing I like to see someone go through.
But hey, it's probably the better choice. Just keep this in mind. It'll be uncomfortable for a few months. But if you don't do it, it'll be extremely uncomfortable for the rest of your life.
Think of it as getting all of that trouble over with now while you're still young and freeing up the rest of your life.

That's how I try to look at this sort of thing, anyway.

well fist good luck, and best wishes^^

I find that when going under with anesthesia... what I find most odd is the feeling of lost time. you don't dream as far as i can tell and it literally feels like you nodded off and wake up in a different room in under 5 minutes. this is a little disorienting (actually a lot) but knowing it will happen might help.

Second, do not attempt to move after regaining consciousness.... i made this mistake more than once and its not fun. stay still if possible and try and sleep again until all of the sleepy drugs are out of your system.

the actual going under feeling is fun in a way... they make you count down from 100 and by 98 you feel your feet spinning around like there pushing your bed... by 95 your out.

again good luck, rest, be well, and I hope to see you on the boards soon again ^__^

My god this looks really big...
you got my best wishes of luck.. I hope all will happens well for you

Cypress wrote:

well fist good luck, and best wishes^^

I find that when going under with anesthesia... what I find most odd is the feeling of lost time. you don't dream as far as i can tell and it literally feels like you nodded off and wake up in a different room in under 5 minutes. this is a little disorienting (actually a lot) but knowing it will happen might help.

Second, do not attempt to move after regaining consciousness.... i made this mistake more than once and its not fun. stay still if possible and try and sleep again until all of the sleepy drugs are out of your system.

the actual going under feeling is fun in a way... they make you count down from 100 and by 98 you feel your feet spinning around like there pushing your bed... by 95 your out.

again good luck, rest, be well, and I hope to see you on the boards soon again ^__^

The anesthesia is something I'm unsure about how to feel about it. I've never been knocked out or put to sleep, so I have no idea what it'll be like . I hope it's as harmless/fun as you claim it is. All I know is that my friends who have had anesthetics say they wake up feeling like they need to vomit (and they say they usually do ). I'll try to stay still when waking up; I'll have an IV, and a Foley catheter, as well as oxygen plugs in my nose. It'd probably be a really bad idea to try and move around .

@ Rev: Lol. When I got the comments I thought that to myself- "How ironic."

@ Gregole: That's what I keep trying to convince myself. I know if it's not done, I'll be worse off. I try to figure that I just need to get it done once and then it's over with .

@ Pendragon & Karbo: I think I've got the best I can get in this surgery, luckily. The surgeon was part of the team who came up with the idea of Spinal Fusion, so this makes me feel pretty safe ^^. I certainly hope that the best happens to myself.

yes... throwing up is probably to be expected. moving makes it more likely, but if you lay still and try and regulate your breathing you can avoid it.... but a lot has to do with your body and how it reacts with it. every body is different in that respect... some lucky bastards dont even feel nauseous after >_<

Cypress wrote:

yes... throwing up is probably to be expected. moving makes it more likely, but if you lay still and try and regulate your breathing you can avoid it.... but a lot has to do with your body and how it reacts with it. every body is different in that respect... some lucky bastards dont even feel nauseous after >_<

I'm not looking forward to feeling nauseous after the surgery. With everything that will be going on, I think throwing up would be the worst thing for me. Hopefully my body can tolerate the effects of the anesthetics and other drugs.

Good luck with the Surgery.

Malahite wrote:

Good luck with the Surgery.

Thanks =p.

I've never had surgery of anykind but two of my friends have had spinal fusion surgery and they're perfectly fine the worse torubles they have are mild back pain and one of my friends bearly took 2 weeks to recover, though yours is a bit worse then hers was I'm sure you'll be fine ^^ Hope you recover quickly and that everything goes alright.

I should be able to go home in five days, they told me. I'm currently in the hospital, on a wireless internet connection from my laptop (cool!). It's cold in my room; I'm wearing nothing except a light gown =(. No idea how the Hell I'm going to sleep tonight with the thought of "Jeez, 8 hours until surgery" running through my head over and over. I wonder how I'll react to the morphine, as well. In a way, I'm anxious to see how things will be after this. I guess that's the best feeling I'll have towards this before it happens, which is enough for me.

* REALLY not looking forward to having a catheter *

I hate those gowns DX