Went to see the spine doc in El Paso yesterday. Deb is now scheduled for Monday October 1st to have surgery. Now the total nature of that surgery hasn't been decided yet. She has a bad herniation at L3-L4, but also she has no disk material left at level L4-L5. The doctor says she could actually use fusion from L3 down to L5.....not a fun prospect. We will discuss this all with Dr. Hickey next thursday, and then let the Doctor know what deb decides. The interbody fusions are much improved from the old days....they now use a carbon plug between the vertebrae, and then take bone fragments that are removed from the spine to get at the disc levels and grind them up with both T-cells drawn from the hip and some kind of bone putty to create the material to pack around the implant. They then connect two screws on each side with a titanium half inch link to hold it all stable. It is much better than the old cages with bone fragments. BUT, it is still something that takes 6 months to fully heal as solid bone. I think that she should only do the discectomy now, and take a more wait and see approach for the rest of it, but she and her doc will discuss it and make some decisions.
I tried to run twice over the weekend to little avail. Calf is still screwy, and now my hamstring is also hinky. So, just biking and doing weights again this week. Man, I sure in hell hope Deb and I can get out of 2012 alive!
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