[HappyHusbandDC]

Hi Everyone,
My wife, son, and I flew into Munich on Sat Jan 24, 2009.
My wife had two level ADR surgery done on Tue Jan 27th (yesterday).

So far we could not be more pleased with the outcome and overall experience.

Within 7 hours of surgery my wife was up an walking, within 12 hours she was eating, and within 18 she was walking the halls in the Straubing Hospital.

The Surgery was performed by Dr Bertagnoli (and team); the procedure took about 2 hours to insert ProDisk-Cs into the C56 & C67 locations.

Mark Mintzer and Team at Global Patient Network has worked with us and supported our efforts from well before our decision to proceed with the proceedure.

After our arrival into Munich on Saturday we stayed in Munich on Sat night. We stayed in Munich because GPN had arranged for us to meet with neurologist Dr Herbert Baumbach, on Sunday evening. The evaluation was infinitely more thorough than the neurological exam my wife had in Maryland. The findings were supportive of the procedure and added a great deal of information about the exact nature of her neurological deficits.

If fact, it was some of Dr Baumbach's finding that enabled us to determine that the deficits were no longer present post-surgery.

I was so impressed with Dr Baumbach that I'm trying to schedule an examination for myself prior to our trip home.

Klinikum St Elizabeth in Straubing:
The hospital staff has been very helpful and friendly. However, having the language barrier adds a layer of delay and increases the chances for miscommunication. This is where Mark and GPN come in. Mark has repeatedly interacted with the hospital on our behalf; this has resulted in less wasted time. By being familiar with the various hospital departments and staff Mark was able to really make things go more smoothly.

Back to the patient:
I expect that her recovery will continue at a reasonable pace and that we'll soon be doing some easy sight seeing around Straubing.

I'll update again as things progress.

Friday Jan 30, 0813 (gmt +1)
We decided not to check out yesterday because of some residual bleeding from the surgery area. Nothing to worry about, but I did not want to be changing bloody bandages at the hotel... Jennifer was very active yesterday with several long walks (with stairs), a shower, a trip to the Physical Therapy department (for a massage), and finally a fast walk down the hall for a view of the beautiful sunset. All of this was combined with less sleep than the 2 previous days and by 2100 she was very very tired.

This morning Jennifer's lower back is more sore; I suspect from all the time spent in bed over the past 3 days. Her blood pressure is a little bit high (something we are told is not unusual). We've been for a walk already and we've developed our list of items to get/settle/address for checking out. 1000 is the time for the next visit to the Physical Therapy department.

This morning I asked staff at the hotel (Theresientor) for extra pillows etc to prop up the head-end of Jennifer's bed so that it's more like her bed at home and the bed here at the hospital. more later...

Monday Feb 2 0910
We left the hospital on Fri afternoon. We dropped our stuff in the hotel and went out to dinner and for a walk afterward.
Sat and Sun were spent checking out Straubing and Bogen and going on increasingly long walks. Jennifer's neck is now not as issue; the foam collar is annoying and the scar has to heal but the chronic neck pain is gone!
We stopped by the hospital yesterday to say hello and ran into one of the Pro-Spine doctors who said she was going great and that she could stop taking the muscle relaxer medicine, yeah!
We have an appointment at the Pro-Spine Offices this morning. We fly home tomorrow.

I'll let Jennifer pick this up from here forward. Thank you for all your kind words and support.
t