classic
book flights biz class at least 8 weeks out or they become unfordable if you book out far enough you can get for about 2500.00 each.
also get a account with www.xe.com
you will save alot of money on the wire tranfers and exchange rate as we saved 1000.00 using them.
hotels depend on where you are having your surgery.
i was in bogen and my wife stayed at the am platz and they found it afordable and the owners were very helpfull also the hospital is in walking distance. oh and its cheaper then the hospitals in straubing as straubing is a much larger town.
hotel in straubing is romemheh {spelling}
owner also very nice and speaks english.
get your self one of those books for tranlators.
also get power adapters at radioshack. there about 40.00 each should only need 2. and if taken a laptop invest in a good surge suppressor.
both hospital rock after seeing straubing hospital i liked the bogen hospital as it need a balcony for myself and wife to step out on to have a smoke.
and your husband will love this they sell beer in the gift shop {grin} i liked that to.
any other questions feel free to email me.
chuck
ps when is your surgery?

Chuck
I don't have surgery booked yet.I am very optimistic at this point that ADR is right for me (local surgeon stating I need 2-level and he only does 1-level).With the info I am given,I can prepare and be ready when given the go ahead to procede with surgery.Do I get a choice of location -Bogen or Straubing? Yup,my hubby will love beer from the giftshophttp://adrsupport.org/groupee_common...on_biggrin.gif Keep him occupied while I am under the knife!Thx for the great advice.How are you feeling at almost 7 months post-op?
Deb

classic
im sure if you request it they may be able to allow you to chose between the 2 hospitals.
a question for anita.
i am doing well no pain in the back to speak of.
still have alot of distraction pain but i had ZERO disc space left to the point where dr. bertagnoli had to undo the auto fusion of the bones at L4-L5
chuck

I'm glad your doing well.Thank goodness you know that the distration pain will pass. http://adrsupport.org/groupee_common...icon_smile.gif

There's at least one FAQ about advice for Bogen that we submitted several years ago and I think other have added their own.

I am getting so discouraged.Another two weeks have gone by and I have heard nothing from Pro-Spine.I went for facet injections last Friday and overall,there has been no improvement.In fact,the past two nights have been awful with my pain level at 9 and my left leg completely numb and tingling. http://adrsupport.org/groupee_common...n_confused.gif

So sorry to hear you're down!! I remember how hard that time was for me-unfortunately I didn't find this forum until I was post-op! I guess it's good news that the facet blocks didn't do anything, as it's a sign that they're not a pain generator, right? It's awful that you're in so much pain though. I really don't have any earth-shattering advice, just wanted to say hang in there-you'll be happy you went this route in the long run. Keep us updated!

You might wish to try again. Pro-spine lost their server connection for a while then lost a more time getting back to us due to other problems. Your contact email might have been lost in the shuffle.

You might try waking up early one morning and calling. The office will not help directly but they will send you on to the overseas coordinator, who did help us and got things sorted out.

I left a voice mail for Anita yesterday. I also forwarded the lumbar spine questionnaire and MRI report to AlphaKlinik yesterday. I received a response from Linda this morning. Since both clinics have great reputations, I don't really care which one I end up (hopefully) going to. I really appreciate all the support I get on this forum. It is such a difficult journey.

Hi there,

I notice you're from Ontario! I live in Toronto and I had my 2 level in Canada (Montreal) fully covered by OHIP last year. Montreal General Hospital by Dr. P. Jarzem and he performs 2 levels ADR.

PM if you wish to have more info.