Surgery with Dr Zeegers Tomorrow at 8am :)

[Karger]

Hello all,

Thanks for all the responses and the shared experiences. This is something i will never forget. It's really odd laying there on the operation table and having the swat team come in and start doing stuff. They are all speaking german too so i had no clue what they were saying etc. that's probably for the best. Then out of no where Dr Zeegers was there and said "Hello Mr Karger". We chatted and he let me know everything was going to be ok. That was super comforting and I had faith that he would do everything in his power to make sure it went smooth. Then the antistatic guy said he was going to start to put me to sleep and in 1 min i would be out. They were all still talking to me and my eyes got heaver and heaver and out i was. I had a crazy dream when i was under, I remembered it when i woke up, but can't really it now due to all the meds.

My surgery took about 4 hours. Dr Zeegers said it was hard to get the disc out and the new one in due to the positioning of my l5/s1 and they had to decompress my spine. Apparently my spine was super compressed. Probably due to the shitty flight. Dr Jung said he also removed some bone that was against my cored. All in all, I don't have any more sciatic pain. i have no pain when i am up and walking around. I do have some at l5/s1 when i am laying down on the bed which is odd..

I spoke with Dr Zeegers and he was extremely happy with the surgery and how it went, even though it was a bit hard. He said he would be sending me the forums outlining the procedure step by step. I can't wait to see.

When he asked me to get out of bed and walk around, I had a huge smile on my face because there was no more pain. I never thought i would feel like that again. I got my picture taken with Dr. Zeegers and my brother. We chatted a bit before he left. The morphine makes you really sleepy. ive been doing lots of sleeping. Just when i got over my jet lag, I messed up my sleep schedule.

All in all i think it was a success.

[Maria]

Hey there.. good to hear from you! So glad that you've no more pain thus far. I think the Morphine helps a bit too with some stuff (having taken it when I first started pain management). Had to smile when I read about the shitty flight possibly compressing the disc space ~ hopefully the flight back will feel entirely different with your new back!

I remember right before my 1st back surgery (89) I was so nervous I was starting to cry and the guys rolling me into the OR told me to breath and backwards from 100 and I remember getting to 98.. zonk.. waking up in ICU (where my surgeon put me initially so that I'd have nurses turning me frequently and checking on my every need all the time the first 2 days. There was no TV in there and I was getting so bored I begged to put me in a regular room as soon as I was able to pull myself out of a druggy sleepy state!

Then once on the regular surgical unit I talked one of my friends into helping me get into the shower that first week post op and the nurses caught me, the surgeon came barreling in threatening to have me 4 point restrained because if I had fallen or would fall I'd ruin the beautiful work he'd done "back there" ..

yes.. what is it they say about nurses and doctors making the worse patients? Pretty true...

Ok end of my droning on here about my past surgical endeavors and sending you loads of good wishes for a continued wonderful recovery! Dr. Zeegers sounds like he's a magician~ making pain disappear! Congrats to him too on what appears to be successful surgery!

take care and rest up now~ Maria