Nurse Tracy

Patrick has been dealing with some pretty persistent and painful neck pain for the last six months. The result of an injury that happened over 15 years ago: 2 herniated discs, 2 pinched nerves and multiple bone spurs.

After seeing his general practitioner repeatedly over the last 6 months (and being told that he needs to work on his posture as well as that he is just trying to get drugs) an MRI was finally ordered. I was with Patrick at his appointment where the doctor went over the results. A lot of talking under his breath, a lot of medical terminology and finally he suggested physical therapy. He also said that surgery would most likely not be necessary.

He had one appointment with the physical therapist. An appointment where the physical therapist told him within the first five minutes that there was nothing he was going to be able to do to alleviate the pain and that he would need to see a neurologist.

A few days later we went to his appointment with the neurologist. Who, within five minutes and after reading the MRI/giving Patrick a quick check, told him that he will need to see a neurosurgeon. The only thing that he could possibly suggest would be injections, but that it was only a band aid and would not fix the problem at hand.

We met with the neurosurgeon a few days after that appointment and he said the same thing. He could try and injection, which may or may not work. He would then need another one 6 weeks later and probably a third injection 6 weeks after that. He told us that it would, basically, be a waste of our time because he would end up needing surgery after those three injections except he would have wasted time, money and he would be in more pain.

We discussed it and decided that it would be in his best interest to have the surgery. A couple of hiccups later Patrick was approved for surgery and it was scheduled.

Patrick has never had surgery before, so I was a bit nervous as we drove to the hospital. We arrived at 8am for his 10am surgery yesterday morning. He was brought back and then about an hour later his dad, my parents and I were able to go back to sit with him before he was wheeled back to the operating room. With a kiss for luck I left the room with tears in my eyes.

His estimated 2-2.5 hour surgery ended up lasting close to 5, with the doctor coming out to tell us that it was a lot worse than he had anticipated. He successfully fused the two discs, fixed the nerves and removed the bone spurs.

Before going into surgery.

 

After surgery.

I was able to spend the night with him last night and sit with him this morning while we waited for the doctor to discharge him. Neither of us slept very well last night (more so him than me because of the pain), but it was a pretty lazy morning watching Ridiculousness and Family Feud.

That wasn't the end of our excitement though. Unfortunately, before school started, Isabel fell on the black top at school. She was in the nurses office for a while before they called us and told us what had happened. A hop, skip, jump and emergency room visit later and Isabel has a minor concussion. Looks like another sleepless night as I have been ordered to wake her every two hours throughout the night to make sure she is okay.

Looks like I will be a nurse for more than one patient this weekend. Couldn't be happier with my patients so far!