I’ve been MIA for a while for many reasons. This past year I’ve had my hands full with our family and their growing needs. As the girls are getting older, they are into more activities. I’m on the PTA board for their school, run their Girl Scouts troop, and shuttle them to all their activities in and out of school with my little guy on my hip. Which might be the reason for the constant back pain I was experiencing for the past year. As the weeks went on, my back pain became too much to handle and after countless doctor’s appointments, I wasn’t experiencing any relief. I felt a pop in my back one day, followed by another pop a few weeks later. What I didn’t know was that pop was the discs in my spine rupturing. After the second pop I couldn’t move my left leg, if I did I had constant pain. My toes burned, my leg ached. It was similar to sciatica pain I had experienced in the past, but much, much worse and more constant. the discs were leaning on my left nerve roots and the only way to fix this was to remove the disc herniation from the nerves. Here’s what my spring has looked like, constantly on the outside looking in from the side lines:
What is a Microdiscectomy?
It’s been months of this constant pain down my leg and my inability to sit, stand, walk, and care for my kids has taken a toll on my life. After speaking with a spine surgeon at the Hospital for Special Surgery in NYC, there’s hope that he can provide some relief with a procedure called a “minimally invasive microdiscectomy.” So, what is a microdiscectomy? Don’t let the name fool you, it’s still back surgery, but it’s minimally invasive because they are making about an inch incision and dilating the muscles as opposed to cutting through them with a bigger incision. This surgeon feels that while I have 3 herniated discs, only one is really causing the most trouble and will only be focusing on fixing that issue. He also explained that if you pulled 10 people off the streets and gave them an MRI, at least 8 or 9 of them would have herniated discs that were asymptomatic and didn’t need to be repaired. He didn’t want to touch anything in my spine unless it was absolutely necessary, so he will be removing the herniation at the L4L5 level.
As I lay here waiting for my surgery in 5 days, I’m a little apprehensive, more so because I’m not allowed to take any anti-inflammatories before surgery and I simply cannot walk without them. The kids still have 2 days left of school, and my husband will be working both those days.
I’ll be updating with my progress after surgery because after doing a ton of research I know it feels good to see someone’s experience as opposed to just reading statistics from doctor’s. And if you need a statistic, my doctor said this surgery has a success rate of 90%. How’s that for amazing odds!?