Bad news...
 

I'm sitting here waiting for my neurosurgeon's office to call. Exactly 12 months after surgery for a ruptured disc in my neck I had MRI and x-rays done on my lower back. Found out yesterday I have three ruptured discs in the lumbar region.

SIGH...I'm just hoping I can have the surgery in time to heal enough to plant my garden, which I had planned to enlarge this year.

:shrug: :Bawling:

That is not good! My thoughts are with you for sure. DO you have good medical at least? Maybe your neighbours would help with some gardening? Just a thought.

Sorry to hear that. Maybe your son will be closer and can help with the garden. (I think you mentioned he wanted to live in the land near yours that you may be purchasing.)

Angie

Oh Ravenlost, I'm so sorry. Please keep us informed.

Anyone live nearby that can help Ravenlost with her gardening? Do you have any neighbors that can help, Ravenlost?

Peace and good energies,
doohap

That is bad news, I'll send you some prayers for a speedy recovery.

Prayers from here too. Your health is more important than your garden.

Sorry to hear about your back, I have my fair share of health probs but am allways thankful that so far my back is ok.Good luck with your surgery n recovery.In so far as the garden is concerned perhaps u could use raised beds n containers that are elevated or hanging to minimize bending over, use plenty of mulch to help with weeds n maybe use a drip irragation or similar to help with watering.

Most important of all tho is to take care of yourself and your recovery and dont push yerself too hard you wanna get better n if you dont listen to your doc n your body you could really hurt yerself . Good luck .

Peace

Praying for you.Hey let the Garden rest a year,you do the same.

big rockpile

Hubby said last night he would do the garden for me. I would really hate not to have a garden...I love the time I spend in my garden and gardening is a highlight of my life. So I will supervise my hubby! LOL...usually I don't let him do much in the garden.

Angie, right now I'm not sure about my son moving. He has a lot of friends in Huntsville and really enjoys living there. However, if he doesn't find a job soon (and he's putting very little effort into it) he may not have a choice. We could really use his help here if he isn't going to do anything there!

Sorry to hear about your back, hope you heal up strong and soon.
At least supervising will give you some of the joy of your garden.

Sorry to hear this, Ravenlost.

Do you NEED surgery? In other words, are you symptomatic? I have several ruptured discs, some worse than others and some hitting nerves more than others. I am symptomatic but "not bad enough" to warrant surgery and thus they just leave them be. I frankly think I am plenty bad off on at least one of them but they would rather chaulk up my pain to another health issue I'm having. :shrug:

The soles of my feet are going numb, especially the right foot. My right hip aches all the time and I can't do anything on my feet for more than five-ten minutes without my back feeling like it is going to break in half. It hurts something terrible and I keep getting burning pains down the back of my left leg.

Do I need surgery? I sure don't WANT surgery, but if surgery will allow me to sweep the floor, wash a few dishes or fold a basket of clothes, then I will have the surgery.

I am so sorry you have hurt your back. Please get the surgery asap if the numbness is setting in on your foot. The more you let it go the more damage you will have. My DD hurt hers in a fall and the drs said to let it go for 6 to 8 weeks to see if it would repair itself. During this time her pain got worse and so did the feeling in her leg and foot. She got the laproscope surgery done on her back last Feb and still has no feeling in parts of her leg and foot. They said it had went too long and the nerve was damaged beyond repairing itself.

The surgery helped her a lot but she still has pain if she overdoes herself.

Thinking and praying for you.http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...free/hugss.gif

Oh, I'm sorry you're going through this. Five years ago I had a discectomy & laminectomy for a ruptured disc in my lower back - I feel your pain!!!

Your surgeon has probably already told you this, but I was warned that if at any time I lost bladder control I was to get to the ER immediately for emergency surgery. Apparently loss of bladder control can be indicative of pending permanent irreversible nerve damage - nothing to fool around with. Don't mean to frighten you, but just a word of caution.

I never had the chance to think about if I wanted the surgery or not - if I didn't have it I may never have walked right again. It was a real blessing. You will be in my thoughts for finding the right solution.

Have you tried the new Vax-D treatments? They put you on a sort of rack and strecth your spine. If my disks weren't totally gone, not even the stuff from the inside of them shows up, I would definitely try it. According to the Dr. I talked to after about 20 of those stretch treatments you only need to go back twice a year. Wish I had gone to him before it was too late.

Ravenlost, a friend of mine just had some lower back surgery. I don't remember exactly what the problem was but they did all kind of stuff including putting in some screws and a mesh cage. Within two weeks he was up and around, feeling better than he was before the surgery! I was amazed! He was also having numbness in his feet and he said the surgery took care of that. Hope you feel better soon.....

Sherry in Ga

The screws and mesh cage thing is what they did to my neck last year. Mine didn't go as well as your friend's Sherrynboo. The nerve in my neck became extremely inflamed and that hurt like the dickens! I had to have shots in my neck twice for that and after a year I still have pain.

My appointment with the neurosurgeon is Feb. 9. Hubby said I'm not allowed to do anything until then because he's afraid I will hurt my back more. He's driving me nuts! All he's let me do today is sit around (although I did load dishes into the dishwasher every time he went outside).

happycat...that makes me nervous. I haven't had any loss of bladder control, but am having problems on the...ummm...other end.

Perhaps the warning given to me was because of the location of the disc, I can't remember the # of it, but it was in the lower back and to the right.

Maybe you should ask your doc about it just to be on the safe side though.

I had surgery March 2nd of last year and slowly but surely healed. I have felt wonderful. Last week my DH asked me to ride over to Aberdeen MS. in our big truck. When we got there and I swung out of the truck holding to the hand grip, I had to drop to the ground (about a foot and a half) and landed on my right foot. All was fine until I got up the next morning or should I say tried to get up. I had muscle spasms from my waist to my ankles.
I feel for anyone with back problems. You have to have been there to realize the agony. Hope all goes well for you.

My sweetheart, Dottie, had one of those electric powered carts that she would drive out to our garden. Then she would crawl down on the ground and do what gardening she wanted to do. No stoppin' her!

I just kept nearby and would ask if she needed me to "fetch something". Sometimes that would irritate her., but usually appreciative of my presence...and we laughed a lot and enjoyed the garden together..SHE MOSTLY LAUGHED AT ME!!!!!BUT she got her gardening done! TOUGH GAL!

Ravenlost- what you describe is exactly what I have going on only my hip pain moves from outer hip to inner groin to all over the place. Most of my back pain is across the pelvic girdle and whadayaknow I have all those ruptured discs there. They say I'm too young and haven't lived with the pain long enough for surgery to help but then my husband comes in, after a severe bout of sciatica that lasted about 4 months and they say he's given it the old college try to put up with the pain so by golly let's slice him open! He did have sciatica for about the same amount of time that wasn't as severe a few years back so they are counting that total time but his back barely bothered him at all between the two episodes. lol, gotta love the docs, eh?

They did surgery on my husband this past fall and he is doing GREAT now.

What horrible pain you must endure! Blessings for you - I can't imagine. I hope you find relief soon!!!

Thanks everyone. I've been on prescription pain meds for almost two years now and I'm really tired of it.