Pre-op

Well, I'm 2 days pre-op, and pretty much ready to go. I've finished most of my christmas shopping, but still have to find something for dad. I had planned to still bake all my traditional gingerbread, I wanted to keep stuff as normal as I could in the circumstances... but that's gone out the window.

The background story is that I was diagnosed with scoliosis at age 12, when my doctor noticed that I couldn't sit up straight, and had a large hump on my left side of my back. At that stage, it was fashionable to wear baggy t-shirts, so it hadn't been picked up until he was examining me for a routine kind of problem. I was sent for an urgent x-ray, and the radiographer showed mum and I the films of my spine showing a large sideways C shape. I was referred to starship, where I was put under review at their clinic, and offered surgery.

My parents had a lot of soul searching, and decided to schedule surgery for the end of third form. In between times, they started seeing a chiropractor who felt that it could be managed with chiropractic treatments, and that the surgery was major and could compromise my ability to have children, so my parents cancelled surgery and continued with him.

Throughout high school I found it difficult to play sports, and had a difficult time with clothing, and generally looked different. I had a large rib hump, and one hip was significantly larger than the other. I think my parents did the right thing, because technology improved over the time that we waited, and the newer rods which they use are much better.

At the end of my nursing training, I was having significant pain and it had worsened over my teenage years. I went back to my specialist and he found that my curve had progressed over my teens, and he recommended surgery. I decided to go ahead with this in 2000, and had an anterior approach (through the side of my body) at Mercy Hospital. The resulting scar runs from my bra-line midway across the left side of my back, diagonally to my undie line on the front. The surgery lasted 10 hours, and I had a collapsed lung and was wiped out for several days. The fusion was from T9 to L2, and has 2 long titanium rods supporting it, with 2 large screws in each vertebrae. When I came out of theatre and was returned to my room, my then long-term boyfriend couldn't recognise me and walked around the ward room looking for me until he realised his mistake. Apparantly I had a soccer ball head from the swelling!

The rehab from that was long and slow, I had very little energy and was white as a sheet. I had to break up my day into tiny bits, having a shower then a lie down, then getting dressed, then a lie down, then breakfast and a lie down.... you get the picture. A milestone after a month was walking the 50m to the top of my street, and going for a ride in the car to see the christmas lights on Franklin Road.

The reason I'm having surgery now, is because my surgeon wasn't able to extend the fusion high enough during the surgery because of the time I had been in theatre, and also because of the approach that he used. We hoped that the curve at the top of the fusion would stay static, however it continued to progress over the seven years since I had my first op. I have had significant increases in pain over this time, and have been majorly restricted in the types of activities that I can do. I'll often over-indulge in sailing, gardening, housework, or the gym, and then have to spend the evening lying down. People don't really see this problem, I tend to try and hide it because I don't like being different. I'm hoping that this surgery will reduce this pain, as my physio thinks that it is all tied in with the progression of the curve at the top of my fusion.

The plan this time, is to go in from the back (another big scar) and fuse T7 & T8, and put rods from T7 to T12. It's going to be about a 30cm cut, and another one on my hip to 'harvest' bone to pack between the vertebrae to fuse it. I had been really upset about having another surgery, and thinking about the long-term implications for having scoliosis. I hadn't been thinking about it and always just got on with stuff, but having the need for another surgery brought it all up and I had to process it. I'm pretty good now, and am ready to go. I spoke to my anaesthatist the other day and am happy with what he'll do for me. He handles my anaesthetic as well as all the post-op medications such as pain relief. I worked with him in intensive care at Greenlane, and I had a lot of respect for him... plus he is really nice and has a good sense of humor (rare things in consultants).

Thanks to everyone who has supported me over the last few months, there are a handful of people who saw the true extent of how stressed out I have been. I think I did all my worrying over the months which I was waiting, and now am the picture of calm. I've decided to do this blog so that people who are interested can follow my progress, and understand a bit about scoliosis. There's a whole extra back-story on my fight with my insurer (Southern Cross), who have pulled my insurance out from under me. The estimated cost of this operation is $50k, so I'm fighting them tooth and nail!