Today is officially 11 weeks post-op...this time eleven weeks ago I was just being rolled into my patient room where I would be staying for four more days...and I'm doing SO much better now!! I am currently enjoying the weather by sitting on the deck and enjoying a glass of wine...much better than a saline drip and IV pain meds!
Unfortunately, the SI joint pain that I mentioned in my last post (which feels like a million years ago, now!) has returned with a vengeance! I had this pain prior to surgery, so it was not a new symptom, but it sure returned after surgery with a new state of don't-mess-with-me once I eased off of the pain pills! Needless to say, I have been super frustrated and a bit down in the dumps these last few weeks, back taking pain pills after work and spending way too many hours lying in bed. Speaking of back to work, I have returned! I have now been working for just over two weeks, and have been working for four hours each day (6:30am - 10:30am), and it feels really great to get back to a schedule and to interact with numerous people again! Once I've gotten out of bed and stretched out a bit, the mornings are really my best time of day, so I'm glad to be working in the morning (especially since they frown on working while on serious pain killers! Tylenol only has to work for those four hours, so it's good the pain is still manageable in the morning!). My pain really tends to increase as the day goes on and by the time it's time to go to bed, I cannot for the life of me seem to get comfortable and fall asleep. After coming home for work, I usually grab a quick snack and lay in bed...and proceed to nap for two to three hours! The nurse I keep in touch with from my surgical team has said it's very normal to be exhausted at this time post-op. Being that I have Restless Legs Syndrome as well, I've had my ferritin levels tested multiple times over the past years (which is the form that iron is stored in in your body...and low iron levels make RLS symptoms worse), and they have always been low...considering that I lost a lot of blood during this surgery, I think that I may just being dealing with a little bit of anemia. Not only am I exhausted, but my RLS has been pretty active lately, and I've spent nights pacing around the house until my legs feel better before being able to sleep. The nurse said we'll monitor the fatigue and if things don't resolve in another month then we'll look more into it. Luckily, Mayo uses a process called "Cell Saver" where they return some of your own blood they've removed during surgery to you after they've cleaned it, and that helped to negate the need for a transfusion during the hospital stay, but I am definitely still feeling the effects of a loss of a large amount of blood. The life span of red blood cells is about 120 days, so hopefully things will start to gear up here in the next month of two.
I have some more incision pictures (just what everybody wants to see, I'm sure!)! :) These were taken at ten weeks post-op, and I am amazed at the difference in the scars from my previous post...things are on their way to healing well! Here is the back incision:
It's definitely less red...although the top of the incision looks almost blister-like, there's no blisters at all present, just a little puffy scar action going on! And the front:
So, back to my sore SI joint...yeah, a bit down in the dumps, frustrated with things, but I finally put in a call to my nurse Brian last week, who has been amazingly helpful! Sometimes I feel like I call too often to check on things and see if there's anything that can be done (really, it's only been maybe four times!), but it's nice to know there's someone who knows what you're going through and if what you are experiencing is normal! So, I called Brian last week and mentioned to him again about how bad my SI joint was hurting (I had mentioned it to him when I saw him at my before-my-return-to-work appointment), wondering if there's something else we could do. Because we have to wait until four months post-op for imaging studies to ensure the fusion has taken and the surgery was successful, they really don't like to do much for treating additional pain before then. But, THANKFULLY, Brian said that since we were at two and a half months post-op, we could consider an SI steroid joint injection...it may slow healing a bit in terms of the fusion, but because the pain is so bad, we need to consider the pros and cons. So, of course, I said 'heck yes!' - and I spent my afternoon today in Gonda 15 South in the pain management area I know all too well (this was my fourth set of steroid injections, but my first in my SI joint...the others were in my lumbar facet joints). The SI injections (done bilaterally, so one shot on each side of the spine) were deeper than the facet joint injections I had had previously, so there was a little bit more pressure, but there were only two shots versus the four I was getting when having lumbar facet injections, so it went pretty quickly. I was incredibly nervous about the procedure today, as if I had no relief whatsoever, that would mean that there would be no options for treatment in the future. But, IT WORKED! The first test comes immediately after the injection, where you can tell if the anesthetic injected into the joint worked...I immediately felt great...unfortunately, that only worked for about an hour, and I started feeling pain in my joint while I was at home lying in bed once the anesthetic wore off. BUT, I still feel much better than I did earlier...I am definitely not at 100%, but I definitely feel better. And this is only day one! It generally takes up to a week for the cortisone to fully kick in and get those nerves calmed down and pain relieved. So, I am trying SO hard not to get excited too early, but I really feel hopeful! And even if the injections don't last long, I really feel comforted knowing that my SI joints are a large cause of my continued pain and I know that there are other options out there that could help my permanently in the future (including bilateral SI joint fusion, keep your fingers crossed this shot holds up and we won't need to consider another round of fusion surgery! but if needed, I can do it!). My last set of lumbar injections actually brought me into the ER before they kicked in due to a phenomenon called a cortisone flare, where the pain actually increases in response to the mecication before it gets better...so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'm able to keep the pain under control (plus, I have much better pain control options at home since having surgery) and that this shot kicks in fully soon.
KNOCK ON WOOD!!
