I don't feel much different to the two month mark, but on reflection I am managing more without getting so worn out. I had a bad cold last week which totally wiped me out for nearly a week, so I was frustrated because I couldn't summon the energy to do my rehab.
Today I did the grocery shopping on my own at Pack n Save (for those of you overseas, it's the busyest supermarket) which was a big deal. The trolleys are really big and hard to push and manuver, and the people around get in the way so you have to move around them, stop in a hurry, etc. The checkout was hard getting all the stuff on to the conveyer from the trolley, but the rest was easy. I left a lot of it in the car, and packed it into lots of small boxes so I could carry them. By the time I got home I was quite sore, but not too bad.
I've hardly taken any drugs for months now, the only time I had to take anything serious was a couple of weeks ago when I went to the Lantern Festival and there were big crowds so I was twisting through, and getting pushed about a little bit, plus lots of walking. I had to drive to and fro, and by the time I got home I had to tuck in to the morphine... first time since the very first days that I was home. That was a one off though, and in hindsight a bit dumb. I was just so excited and feeling so good!
The hardest thing is that I am struggling to cope with the day to day things, and do my rehab. I'm priorotising rehab over things like washing, but it is really hard to live in a mess. Bryan is really busy at work trying to recoup the money he lost looking after me all summer, so it's not his fault. It's just quite hard to keep up with stuff, so the standards are not as high as we would like. I get some help, but sometimes when I ask it all seems too much trouble for the helper. Bryan's mum has been really good, she has done more than her fair share of ironing!
I am sitting for longer periods up in the normal chair, so I am starting to get into the books again. Plus, the motivation is coming back at last.
Out of all this experience, I have decided to start up a website for people in NZ with scoliosis, as there is nothing! I don't really know how to start, but I'm sure with my connections I'll get there!
Pre-op 2000
This is before I had any surgery on my back. It's looking at it front on. You can see the base of the spine is where it connects to my pelvis, and then how the top is out of line with the bottom, This made it look like I had one big hip, because my ribcage was off to one side.
Pre-op 2007
Here is how my spine looks now, you can see that the part that has the rods is straight, then at the top the unfused part goes off at a different angle. The surgery tomorrow is to fix that, by putting a rod from about 2 vertebrae up and 3 or 4 below the junction.
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