Somehow I didn’t think that I was going to be writing a Thanksgiving message from my hospital bed but here I am. Surgery didn’t go at all the way I was expecting and so it’s been almost a week in hospital now. I want to go home! I’m feeling beaten up and in need of my own bed at this point in time. When that’s going to happen I really don’t know, the doctors are due to re-evaluate me today to see if I can manage the rest of recovery from home. I was only up a few times yesterday and I think they’d like to see me up a bit more often managing things a bit better on my own.

My surgery to replace the neuro stimulator took over 6 1/2 hrs in surgery when the process should have only taken about 1 1/2 hrs. They ran into a lot of problems trying to get the lead to go where it needed to go. They had a lot of surprises along the way and found a lot of adhesions that they had to cut through. Ultimately they had to remove two pieces of bone in the T1 & T2 area to try and get the lead in place but yet another surprise showed itself,  a ring of scar tissue around the bone they partially removed. After all that however the success story was that they got two of the contacts in the lead into a place where they should never move giving perfect coverage to the limb needed.

Now comes the long hard mountain that needs to be climbed. If your considering an implant of a neuro stimulator you need to understand that there’s going to be a lot of pain when it comes to the recovery side of things. When the surgeon goes in to place the lead in your back, all of those nerves start getting upset and then your CRPS has a grand old time doing its thing, making your body scream with pain. There’s no way around it! If you have CRPS and you’re having a procedure done, there’s going to be extra pain and a whole lot of it! You can get through it though! While I’ve been here at the hospital I’ve been doing a lot of praying to get through this stage.

While I’ve been here at the hospital it’s been a real lesson in frustration trying to get the nurses and people providing my health care to understand the nature of the beast I’m dealing with. Over and over I’ve had to explain my condition and that the standard pain scale can’t be applied to a person with my condition. I thought that by being moved to a neuro ward that my chances may be better at getting the treatment plan that I needed for my pain but it’s become so evident that more education needs to take place. There seems to be a real disconnect understanding that CRPS patients already take high levels of pain killers. As a result this always effects how you as a CRPS patient are treated when it comes to getting anything extra for your pain relief.

As the day has progressed it’s become more and more evident that today won’t be the day I’m going home. It’s just been one of those days where emotionally I’m all over the place because I want to be home with my family!