The hottest weekend of our summer and I'm attached to respirators, iv & morphine drips, two cannula's and twenty stitches up my spine. My operation, the thoracic laminectomy was described to me after the fact as "singularly the most painful operation anyone could have". Yes I can concur with that. Firstly In order for the surgeon to identify the correct spinous process to be removed from my backbone, the exact position had to be marked with a dye.Unfortunately, this involved having four needles placed simultaneously in my spine under X- ray in situ until the correct area was identified the dye was then injected. This first process by the way was not under anesthetic. X - ray done I was back in my room for a very short while until again being wheeled away to surgery. This time I was very apprehensive, all my other operations carried risks, but nothing like having your spine operated on. Once again I said my goodbyes to Wendy and Hope ...................
The very neat stitching on the left is what is left apart from the pain of course
Total time in surgery and recovery was approximately 6 hours. It all went according to plan. Now for the news I was not expecting, the surgeon said the cystic lesion removed from my spine was in fact attached to the spinal column by a "Stalk" which had to be clamped, severed and glued. This was totally unexpected as my surgeon believed the lesion to be growing outside of the spinal column. It is not believed this will give me problems in the future but just adds to the mystery of exactly what this is and how long it has been there. It certainly has only been causing me problems in the last few months and according to the surgeon was pressing on my spine quite considerably.
What has this got to do with the Bowel Cancer?? We don't know, nothing I hope, and Ive just been unlucky enough to get this on top of the bowel cancer but given my history with bowel cancer nothing is yet to be ruled out. I have been told as this is the Neuro-Sciences department every single cell removed will be analysed which could take up to Ten days.
Having had the morphine drip removed I am now in a lot of pain and can't seem to get into a comfortable position, neurophen and paracetymol doesnt seem to do anything, so I have been given doses of Co-codamol but hey this thing is gone and that's all that matters........................................
Total time in surgery and recovery was approximately 6 hours. It all went according to plan. Now for the news I was not expecting, the surgeon said the cystic lesion removed from my spine was in fact attached to the spinal column by a "Stalk" which had to be clamped, severed and glued. This was totally unexpected as my surgeon believed the lesion to be growing outside of the spinal column. It is not believed this will give me problems in the future but just adds to the mystery of exactly what this is and how long it has been there. It certainly has only been causing me problems in the last few months and according to the surgeon was pressing on my spine quite considerably.
What has this got to do with the Bowel Cancer?? We don't know, nothing I hope, and Ive just been unlucky enough to get this on top of the bowel cancer but given my history with bowel cancer nothing is yet to be ruled out. I have been told as this is the Neuro-Sciences department every single cell removed will be analysed which could take up to Ten days.
Having had the morphine drip removed I am now in a lot of pain and can't seem to get into a comfortable position, neurophen and paracetymol doesnt seem to do anything, so I have been given doses of Co-codamol but hey this thing is gone and that's all that matters........................................
1 comment:
Eventually everything will fall into place
Until then laugh at the confusion....!!
love and prayers x
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