Wishing you the best tomorrow and for a quick out of the hospital and recovery.

Good luck, Graham. Hope your surgery goes smoothly and works well for you. Sounds like your surgeon has figured out a good solution to that particular problem. There isn't much info on the board about the AxiaLIF procedure so I'm sure many people will look forward to reading your experiences.

Now if you can stay out of the way of those blasted trucks....

Take good care,
Gwennie

How are you doing, Graham?

Hi Graham

I work for TranS1- maker of AxiaLIF. It is very valuable for us to hear about actual patient experiences. I appreciate you sharing your story and wish you a swift recovery. Thanks for the update and look forward to hearing about the outcome. If there is any information that TranS1 can provide you with, or if you have any feedback, please don't hesitate to let me know.

Regards

Matt Pickens

Thanks for the well wishes Ron and Gwennie. Our old friend Erin McGinley sent me a note yesterday.

I;m doing well according to my surgeon and the nurses. I got there at 5:15sm. Was in OR by 6:30 getting prepped. That took a while. Then they put me out. Surgery was scheduled to start at 7:15. I woke up in recovery around 10am. Surgeon went to the consulting room to meet my wife and went over everything. He was very nice and made sure she understood it all went well. All the hardware went in good and the xrays looks good.

I woke up and the hip and leg pain was gone. It still is so far. The only area I am in pain is in the back where he cut muscle to install pedicle screws and rods. That hurts a lot. Taking Percocet and Valium for it. It helps but not great. Getting up kills me. Sitting is also bad. I did get up and walk in the evening the first day. Walked at 9pm, midnight, 4am, and 7:30am. Surgeon showed up and talked to me for a while. Then his nurse checked me out and changed my bandages. Covered the first two weeks recovery. The staff at the hospital was great.

I was released at 10am next day. Getting into a sitting position or getting up is horrible. My legs almost give way. So I'm wearing the brace and my wife helps me. I was told 3-4 days before the pain tones down.

Matt I will be in contact with you. I'm in Raleigh. My surgeon is a consultant for you. We didn't do the 2 small facet screws. He believes in the 4 pedicle with rods. Feels it is more stable. We can talk about it and my progression. PM me a an email address and or phone number I can reach you at. The sacral part of the surgery I don't even feel.

That's enough for now. I'm beat.

Graham

...all the best to you with your recovery. No motor racing for a while..OK?

Most certainly not my friend. The car is returned stock right now and is sitting in the garage on a battery tender. Hoping by March that I can get my buddy to help me tear down some of the car and fix it up. Maybe next summer I can go play. I know better than to push this. This is the fix I've been waiting for.

My wife is all over my case about control and doing exactly as I am told.

So I'm still kinda dopey at the moment. But I'll try ai nd try and recap. I listed above about the surgery times. I was told it could go 4 hours if there were any complications. It turned out a little over 2 hours. What was nice was the surgeon got out of OR and sent his nurse down asap to see my wife and assure her i was ok. As soon as he cleaned up he went over all of it with her. I was impressed that he and his staff were very informative and kept my wife calm. They knew she was shook up and made every effort to get that under control. His nurse gave her a number to call if anything bothered or scared her about how i was treated. That was comforting to know.

First thing the next morning i saw my surgeon. He wanted to check my stitches and ability to move. He was very adamant about me telling him exactly how i felt. It's just a good feeling to know your surgeon hasn't just knocked out another "wham bang thank you ma'am". He then sent in his nurse before i signed out to make sure i had everything i needed.

This morning his PA and PT lady who fitted me for my brace both called. Wanted to know if the meds were helping and if i could tolerate the brace.

Well that's all for now the drugs are kicking in and i'm about to pass out.

Graham

...well we had a bump in the road to recovery. Actually I almost went off the cliff. The combination of Percoset, Valium, and some stuff they gave me in the hospital caught up to me. I am apparently severely allergic to Percoset. Mixed in with Valium and my wife couldn't get me to wake up. When she did I threw up all over the place. Think The Exorcist... The on duty doc had her give me some anti-nausea medicine that is supposed to be the best, Oncondon or some such. It didn't do squat. So now they are pumping Phenergan into me. After 3 days of not even holding down water. I finally am back to the living. I ate real food today. Whippeeee!!! To top it off now I'm on Senacot-S again. I wish these people would make up their minds. Food in or food out, sheeessshhhh

I'm back to Darvocet. They want to try Vicodin and some other stuff on me. In as polite a voice as could muster I told them to keep the hell away from me pills. Darvocet works so-so. I can deal with the pain. I can get up and walk. I did 4 x 1/4 mile walks today outside in the fresh air. With my shiny turtle brace on.

I'll post more about the actual surgery and what AxiaLIF really feels like later. Trying to regain consciousness right now.

Graham

some other stuff. I started feeling really naseus

So far so good.

I have a cut in sacrum that made one heck of a bruise on my butt. I'm thinking of some real creative Christmas cards 2 cuts on my back for the screws/rods. All are held together with the Dermabond I believe it is called. ie, I'm glued, not stitched. So I can shower and not a problem.

I walk with a brace. It's a 2 piece with turtle shell. The shell is removable. No cain or walker at all from day 1. I walked at the hospital within hours of waking up.

I'm doing 6-8 short walk bursts daily to keep my circulation moving. It easily adds up to a mile. I stuck a pedometer to the brace.

As for pain. I am on plain old Darvocet-N and they are switching it to Darvocet with no Tylenol and higher dose. It's tolerable right now.

The type of pain. Ok I honestly can't feel that bolt that is screwed up through my sacrum between S1 and L5. It and the BMP seem to be happily in place. So the AxiaLIF part doesn't hurt as near as I can tell right now. The main pain comes from cut muscles to install pedicle screws with rods. I can feel the hardware a bit and the muscles a lot when I stand and sit. I can walk just fine. Normal stride with no real problems.

The really weird part. I don't feel the pain in my left side that I did before surgery. It just feels weird not hurting somewhere that has always hurt. So hip, leg, and foot numbness is gone right now. Back pain is there. At the surgery site. Should be expected. I was told 1st 2 weeks then we should see less pain there also.

Graham

I tried 1 Percoset the other morning cause my back really hurt. That 1 pill kept me numb for hours then I wanted to throw up again. I can't even take 1 of those frigging things.

My doc never got my RX fixed. So I take 2 x Darvocet 100/625 at a time. I only took 4 all day. Then 1 Valium cause I think my muscles started to tighten up, I did manage to walk 1.5 miles today in 4 spurts. My wife even took me to Lowes and let me look at tools. That guy thing. While she picked some tiles she needs for doing the counter backing in our kitchen. I wasn't allowed to lift anything. Even tools. Just look, no touch. So I got some fresh air. Rode in the truck for 2 x 15 minute trips. That was enough. She hit a speed bump and wasn't really paying attention. I made a rather off coloured remark about her driving and she realised that bump jarred my back. Speed bumps bite.

Also found out tightening that thing down good for support. When you walk it was pushing my muscles in my back into the new hardware. It made my leg get numb. So I had to loosen it a bit. Another thing to pay attention too.

Other than that I got insomnia tonight. I'm not doing too bad abd still glad I did this. When I get my Tuesday visit to docs I hope to get some xray images on CD so I can post them. So you can see how the hardware looks.

My wife says the big bruise on my butt is almost gone now. The glue patch of that skin stuff is holding up well.

Glad to hear you're doing okay. That really bites that you're allergic to the stronger pain meds. They can be really helpful when you need them. The not waking up and vomiting stuff must have been awful not to mention very frightening for your wife. I hope your recovery continues apace. The walking sounds good.

Linda

Did 1st post op visit today. Very uneventful. Saw surgeon long enough to say hello. His PA took care of everything else. He now has a new one to help his nurse so office visits are running much smoother. I was in and out in 30 minutes.

She checked the wound. Checked a bunch of basic motor skills. Usual tests. Talked about walking. She doesn't want me shooting for 2 miles yet. 1.5 is more than enough. She prefers lots of 1/4 mile walks. I usually do 1/2 mile.

No PT yet. They want to wait 2 more weeks. They fixed my meds and put me on hydrocodone. So far that doesn't make me sick and helps with the pain.

I can cut down wearing the back brace including going for walks. They still want it on in the car. I am allowed to drive for 15 minutes only in my automatic transmission car. That is only allowed if I skip the meds. Which I agree on.

I tried to get the used surgical kit but apparently they recycle those now. He said he'll get me some old pedicle screws for toys if I want.

Right before next visit I need to go to hospital and get Lumbar and Sacral Xrays with a report. Bring them with me.

So 2 more weeks of laying around and lots of little walks. Then I start PT and return to work part-time. I dictate how many hours I stay at work. He would prefer 1/2 days at first. Then if that goes well I can return full-time in 6 weeks.

Also on the hardware. He does not use BMP at all. For the reasons and concerns some have noted on here. Like the issues Ernurse has had. So he uses this stem cell something or other. I have to look it up on his site. He says he has great results with it.

PS: Thanks Linda. Yes my wife was very scared. We are past that now and she is busy playing mother hen. She works from home. She won't let me break any doctors rules. My youngest daughter is still shook up. She is daddy's girl. She thought I was not going to wake up. I think we are all past that bump in the road now. On too more excitement.

Graham

Graham,

Sorry i been missing these post. Glad to hear your doing so well with the surgery. Walking is always the key. I used to like to take different paths to see different things. I actually was amazed looking at the neighbors house things I never noticed just driving by not to mention made some really good friendships along the way. Keep working on getting better and before you know the 6 weeks will be over and you be back out doing everything you enjoy well just not the racing yet? Take care will look for more of your updates.