[lkastl]

Hi and thanks for your quick and hopeful reply

The decompression was always described to me as a foraminotomy where "just a little bone" would be taken out. That is the way I presented it to my ADR surgeon, although he had scans and x-rays so I certainly think he could have seen and assessed the amount of decompression that was done. I did get the surgeons report, I don't recall when, I think it was AFTER adr, and was surprised to see the words"hemilaminectomy" and "faceteomy" (not sure if I spelled that right" in the report. Scared me, but it was too late. I think I gave the report to my current treating physician in 2008, but my memory might be incorrect. I looked through all my files and I can no longer find it. It has been a very long time, but I am sure I could get it again from the original surgeon's office.

As far as the hip surgery, in retrospect, not sure if the hip pain that I presented to the hip doc was coming from my back or my hip. All I know is that my back was supposedly fixed, and I had hip pain so I thought I would get my hip checked out. Hip doc convinced me it was my hip so I went through with arthroscopic surgery with him. The hip was tractioned during the surgery, and I think that pulled on the lumbar nerves, and increased my old friend the nerve pain in the leg. Eventually after that recovery and everything settled down, the hip did seem better and I was able push off on that leg in a way I couldnt before.

Thanks for the words of hope and encouragement. Right now I am feeling scared and also angry that I should have been advised to have a fusion. It is a terrible feeling to know that the device installed in your body is mistake and the "fix" (if there is one) is iffy at best.

I have tried searching "revision" but not really finding concrete success stories. . . .

Hopefully this facet stuff can be managed, and if things settle down I am promising myself to be more careful with my activities. Summer of 2011 was my best year yet and the actvities that I engaged in included: roller coasters, horsebackriding, shoveling horse stalls, carrying big bags of feed, chopping wood, all kinds of ranch work. I told myself I can just get back to baseline and can "only ride" I will be more than happy to pass off the manual labor to others