Hello and welcome to my story! My name is Becky, I am 35, married to Aaron, and mom of 3 wonderful kids (18,17,14).

My first back injury was when I was 15. I slipped at home in tub and landed on the edge, hitting my tailbone and knocked my hips forward. Easily fixed by chiropractor. I never knew then what real pain was.

On March 17, 1991, I buried my brother who had committed suicide. The next day in my depression, my youngest screamed as she was closing the car door and I spun on concrete steps afraid she had smashed her fingers, lost my balance and landed twisted on the edge of steps in many places on my lower back. After I crawled into house, hubby came home from work and took me to hospital, where they said I was just bruised. Another 2 weeks of pain, and I decided to see a chiro again. Doctor Smith was excellent and worked on me 5 days a week until he had a feeling the hospital was wrong. He sent me for a MRI and low and behold, I had a herniated disk in L5 and a ruptured disk in L4. He immediately stopped treatment and sent me to a Neurosurgeon friend, Dr. Cole. Little did I know he would be an integral part of my life for the next 8 years. Dr.Cole scheduled me for immediate surgery. They did a lamenectomy of the L4-5 region. I awoke from surgery feeling brand new and able to feel my left leg again. After my 6-week checkup, Dr. Cole had me return to the chiropractor for therapy. They did muscle stimuli and when I was ready, about 3 months post-op my chiro had me design and plant his entire front of office. It took me 3 weeks but I did receive an award from the town I lived in for community beautification. The doc watched my entire process and would tell me if I was bending wrong etc., this was his way of reteaching me how to maneuver after back injury.

I never had to see chiro or neuro after they gave a clean bill of health from that surgery.

In January of this year (1999), while wearing cleated hiking boots I went to enter my house which my house a very tall entry step (almost 12 inches) , I slipped on the thin glaze of ice that had formed as the sun went down, did the splits and as I was going down, my son pushed the screen door out to me and I jerked my body to keep from hitting ground. I immediately knew I had done damage. I called my GP the next morning and went to see him at first opening (3 weeks due to flu season). I saw him on the 28^th and he sent me for MRI. This showed that I had done damage to previous site and the disks above and below. He sent me immediately back to Dr.Cole. I saw him on the 3 of March. He ordered more scans and scheduled me for a myelogram on the 15^th of March. This showed that I needed another lamenectomy so I was not released from hospital and he performed surgery the next morning. He made a judgment call while in surgery to leave the L3 & S1 disk alone, hoping that by fixing the center area it would relieve those without surgery. One week post op I knew I was in trouble. I had major pains shooting down left leg when the steroids they injected during surgery wore off. I immediately saw my doctor and he said he wanted to try meds and wait ‘til my 6-week before doing x-rays. This sounded ok to me, as I knew I could never lie still on MRI table for an hour. At 6-week post visit, I went for CAT scan and MRI, these showed that the disk he had taken a gamble on had herniated. At the end of June, I was scheduled for another myelogram and surgery the following day. After my doc got the results of myelogram, he came and gave me the bad news and damage report. He couldn’t do surgery the next day as I would have to have my back fused. His reason for not doing it immediately was that he was scheduled to go on vacation over the 4^th of July and would be gone for 2 weeks with his family and didn’t want to do surgery and leave me in hands of his replacement. I wholeheartedly agreed. I wanted him available, and didn’t want anyone else trying to doctor me without knowing my case.

We scheduled my surgery for July 26^th, but one week before they called and said the vascular surgeon he wanted on the team wasn’t available ‘til August 3^rd and that was the new date. I left all the particulars up to my Doctor, as I had complete faith in him and trusted his judgement on who should be in OR with us. That last week was the worst for me, I had to wean off some of the meds so my blood would not be too thin and I would bleed out. The pain was at a 20 the 2 nights before and I was searching for answers when I came across this site, went to chat room and found Dennis (my saving grace and shoulder to cry upon) who gave me the answers I sought and helped me make it through the night. I had been catching a lot of hell from my family for not getting second and third opinions, I had left this up to my doctor to do for me and he did. He sought 8 neuro’s and 3 radiologists and 3 vascular opinions for me. I then posted an email to Leslie to add me to the prayers and posted a message to the boards.

On August 3^rd they did anterior L4-S1 fusion with bone graft from left hip and ray cage. I woke up in the worst pain I had ever imagined and due to the prosthetic companies error, I was not able to get my back brace for 2 days, so I had to stay on IV and catheter and bed rest until my 3^rd day post op. The first time out of bed felt like a MAC truck had hit me. There was not one spot that wasn’t screaming from the pain. I walked with the help of walker and 2 nurses to the bathroom (a mere 8 steps), which took me almost 10 minutes there and 10 back. I experienced the drop foot syndrome on the left side so I had to kind of dragged it along. They got me up every hour and made me walk a few more steps each time. By the next morning I could walk the 20-foot hall in front of my room. My insurance had only allowed 4 days in hospital so my doctor fibbed and told them I was showing signs of infection and required another day of hospital care as he didn’t want me to go home (an hours drive) during heavy traffic. I was released on a Saturday and went to my parents’ home for the first week so I could have 24-hour help if needed. And boy did I ever need it!

My first 3 weeks I seemed to be doing wonderful…which brings me to my present and 4^th week. I started getting a burning sensation on Monday in my legs, doc said this is normal. By Thursday night I was feeling very depressed and having major charley horses from feet to hip and wanted to stomp my feet and kick to make them stop. Thank God for my hubby who wrapped me in his arms and held me tight all night long and made his body like a back board so I wouldn’t injure myself, which I would have if I had kicked or stomped my legs. I called my doc this morning and he is ordering muscle relaxers. I sure hope this helps and I can get back to feeling wonderful, as I was the first 3 weeks. I hate the thought of taking all the med. but will do so if it means comfort.

I will close this book for now but will give updates as I progress. If I can help anyone in any way please email me, icq me (1701227) or post on the message board.

God bless each and every one of us. We are God’s injured angels and He is wrapping his arms around us.

Becky has been kind enough to offer anyone interested to e-mail her..

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