[jasonwidup]

Hey everyone. Well, it's done and I'm out of the hospital. I got the new Freedom disc - it is the one I wanted so that's good.

Everything went as expected. Delamarter did tell me that there was more degeneration in my vertebrae than they could see in the pre-op images, but he mentioned that he cleaned it up (this is what he told my mom so I'll need to reconfirm at my post-op appt). My guess is he was talking about some arthritic bony formations that he probably chipped away?

Recovery so far has been pretty much as I expected based on everything I've read. My back pain as I knew it before has definitely changed. There is one specific movement that used to cause me pain that still does - it's a forward pelvic tilt. Maybe that's my facets or maybe it's just too early to do something like that as it puts pressure on the new disc and my recovering vertebra with spikes sticking in them :-).

I woke up from surgery in a ****load of pain. Incision and back. It took them 3 hours to get it under control - but man that was some pain.

The incisional pain was definitely the worst. Now I know what my wife went thru with 2 C-sections! It took about 2 full days for that pain to be tolerable for me.

I didn't have any nerve issues until today and I'm guessing that is because I've had the most activity today. I have some nerve pain down my left leg - guessing it's distraction pain. If it remains at this level I'll be fine. They offered me Lyrica at the hospital but I didn't take it because I've had a bad experience with neurontin before which I think might be similar to Lyrica. However, I think I'll try the Lyrica so I don't need full narcotic for the nerve pain if I don't need it. Anyone experience with Lyrica for distraction? Dose?

So now I'm resting with my mom at a house I rented in the Hollywood Hills, just down from the Hollywood sign. Nice place to recover. Will be here until Friday then flying home back to my wife and kids.

I'm preparing for a 6-12 week recovery and I'm prepared for my ups and downs, again thanks to the descriptions in this forum.