I just found out that I am going back in on the 25th and it’s going to be very invasive.
A six hour procedure. They are going to open up both sides of my groin, take a large hollow spike with a removeable solid center and ram a tunnel through my lower belly so they can run a tube through from one side to the other. They jam through then pull the solid part out and thread the tubing through the hollow metal tube. Then they are going to connect the right side artery to the left side artery just below the blockage that she couldn’t dig out last December.
After that, she is going to take the same instrument and ram another tunnel from the left side down through my left thigh to just above the knee and put another tube in. Then she is going to connect just under the new tube on the left side to the femoral artery just above the knee to bypass the blockage in my left thigh.
All of this is to try and get more blood flow to my lower left leg to try and stop the 24/7 pain I have now in the muscle on the outside of my lower left leg. The one that is like having shin splints in all the time now. It’s been aching 24/7 for some time now and it hurts like a sonofabitch when I have to walk and I mean even ten or fifteen feet at this point.
I have a cane now to lean on because I have to stop and let the blood flow catch up all the damn time. This new shift I am on at work causes me to be on my feet 3 times as much as before because I am working alone
. She figures it’s going to be 2 months minimum to recover and I’m still not 100% healed up from the incision last December. Plus I have this giant wound on my left foot from trying to burn off a corn that is just killing me.
I haven’t had more than 3 hours of sleep a night for over a week at this point and my foot is fucking killing me as I sit here and type.
The surgeon changed up the pain meds I am on to 10 mg of Oxycontin which I am allergic to in higher doses along with 500 mg of Tylenol every six hours and it isn’t doing shit.
I am going to call her up and see about going back to what I was taking before but get a prescription for every 4 hours instead of twice a day because I am sick and tired of hurting all day and all night. If I can get enough in me to get it to let up then keeping it at bay is a lot easier. It’s just getting over that initial hump.
So I am hoping all this works and I can start being relatively pain free as much as possible and hopefully more mobile.
Next month will be 2 fucking years that I have been screwing around with the medical system over this and I am about fucking done.
I have my fingers crossed, this is going to be quite the procedure and all well wishes and prayers are going to be sincerely appreciated.
I haven’t even told all of my family about this yet and am just now putting it on the blog..
I just found out about all of this yesterday afternoon.
So as you can imagine, I’ll be Out Of Service for a couple of days at least right after the surgery, at least 4 or 5 days in the hospital and then bed ridden for a while at home until I heal up enough to be able to stand up and try walking.
I see morphine in my future.
Well Brother having had over 10 surgeries myself for my back and leg, I truly sympathize with your situation. You can bet your bottom dollar all of us here at the Hermit Cave will be Praying for a Successful Surgery and You being Pain Free at the end of it. 🙏
Thanks man, I appreciate that.
With her spending so much time around your groin, is she at least going to give you a kiss first?
Prayers that the surgery is successful and that you have as quick a recovery as possible
I too shall be praying for you. A friend went through that same surgery about six months ago. It’s quite an operation.
All the best, Phil.
Hopefully you will have an expeditious and complete recovery with the desired outcome. Pain sucks. Chronic pain sucks MORE. God bless. Prayers for all the best.
Nice to know they’re going to do something: here in the UK under the Notional Health Service they seem to have a policy of “nothing we can do”. Son (51) has several displaced discs as has son of a friend (34). Both do skilled manual work and have been told to live with it!
Above all, do as you’re told and just seethe quietly when you’re having to rely on others!
Hope it goes well for you Phil. My Mother-in-Law was in a bad way. They put in plastic tubes all over the place her arteries were so bad. Everyone expected her to only make it a year. She made it ten. Might have made more but she didn’t want more surgery, and she drank heavily every day, as she had for years before the surgery.
Sir.
Having worked in a top Cardiac Cath Lab in Houston and assisted in many such cases, if I may be so bold as to offer my nickel’s worth…
PRAY.
intently and seriously.
Trust the Dr and the Cath Lab Crew.
Seek their advice and tips.
Follow instructions diligently!
Have the mindset from the get go that it will be a long haul just to get back to “better”.
Try not to get in a rush. I am 70 and have noticed I don’t bounce back as quickly.
Pain control- the fed bureaucrats have tremendous over-control on that and DO review MD and Pharmacists for non-compliance. Be patient, but firm with her. Her hands /options are much more limited than 10-15 years ago even.
Also, to some extent, expect set backs here and there.
Don’t be surprised if the procedure takes longer than planned (your description indicates a good chance it will. And the situation is continuous and on going, therefore a bit more complicated than when last imaged.
Used to be, it was discretionary for them to provide you with some cushioning for lumbar support. I would talk to her ahead of time about that.
It’s not for me to say, so I will. Don’t sweat the site. We All prefer you fully healed and to never experience such again.
We will still be here if it’s a year from now.
As for me, I will pray for you, your family, the crew, the regular hospital staff and if applicable, the rehab staff.
Growing old aint for wimps,
and no one ever confused for a wimp ( not without paying a price anyway. Thus my point).
You got this man!
Juan
(it occurs to me, BRM/Peter Grant likely has good insights if you haven’t spoken with him)
Being a man of “a certain age” I can fully empathize… I spend way more time in doctors’ offices than I would care to. Still, I believe that life is worth living, so this dude abides. Best of luck with all this, and prayers of course. When I went through cancer some years ago I adopted a saying from my engineering career: “Plan the work, and then work the plan.” I just kept doing the next right thing, even if that was simply waiting or lying flat on my back.
Please, no photos of your surgery…….
But if you do, make it pay-per-view – you might get enough to cover the cost of surgery.
My friend: after my last work trainwreck, 27 ops, developed an allergy to moriphene which shut down the urinary system thusly damaging the smooth muscle bladder. Please be cognizant of keeping the piss flowing while relying on the pain meds no matter what the means to do so. Toughing that out is the wrong fork to take.
Yes, prayers for thee, sir.
Soapweed
I see there are a number of insomniacs judging by the time stamps on the comments above.
I pray for and wish for the best outcome of your pending procedure. Take it slow and easy. It’s harder to heal after a “certain age”.
Best wishes for a full recovery. We Blue Collar guys beat the hell outta our bodies and the end result are usually some needful repair works as we age. Been there done that and offer my sincere sympathies for what you are enduring. God’s blessings on you.
May a successful surgery be yours
A speedy recovery be yours
And a painless future be found.
I wondered about bypass surgery. Also wondered where they’d get the blood vessels to use. Tubes, eh? Synthetic material which your existing tissue will bond to? That’s actually pretty cool.
Best of luck to you, Phil.
Appreciate your sick humor, will be praying for a successful.surgery and rapid recovery.
Damn. Prayers from Tennessee.
When going through hell just keep on going. Hope you have an expedient recovery.
I know the routine all too well Phil … I’m with you in my thoughts … I hope it all goes as smoothly as it possibly can for ya and positive results begin to blossom quickly … You’re a tough old bastard ! … You’ll do this !!! …
Prayers for a successful surgery and a smooth recovery (you’re going to be pretty sore for a bit.
I went through this with my father – they were using cadaver veins (3x on each leg). I wished they had used what your docs did.
Watch out for the oxy. He developed an allergy to it (apparently about 5% do), which was its own special hell. As Juan mentioned upthread, the degree of control the blob has over pain meds is ridiculous.
Check back when you can. We’ll be here.
Prayers sent up, my friend.
There is a way if your docs/insurance will do it. Tell her you want a referral to a pain management anesthesiologist. You want a epidural pain pump with a mixture of Marcaine and Fentanyl. We tunnel it from the center over the spine to your flank. The tube is very small and you won’t feel it. Simple terms think of dominoes (the nerve) all lined up and you tip the end one (the pain impulse) and all them start falling down (going to your brain that tells you it hurts). The epidural block is like taking away about 5 or 6 dominoes. The falling dominoes cannot bridge that gap so it stops the rest from falling. The epidural blocks that nerve from delivering that pain impulse to your brain, so you don’t know you have pain. They can be placed in a regular exam room so nothing not a big deal. Fentanyl is fat soluble not water soluble. It tends to remain where you place it. The nerve blocked is in a fatty space. It takes about 18 hours to even show up in your blood. Does not make you sleepy. One problem is crusty old shits go “Oh, pains gone I need to to change out the engine in the Sprite”. Epidurals can be that good. I have seen a lung taken out and 4 hours later they were up walking the halls without problems. The pump runs on a 9v battery and is very portable. Gives about a teaspoon/hour, but it can be increased or decreased as needed. Good until you have your surgery. When the juice runs low (about 3 days with our pumps) you just go in and they will change it out. The post above are very correct. I know of one case a doc at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center was arrested for giving oxiy to a woman with a tumor inside her spine! Dumbass DPS narc said she just wanted drugs. Judge through him out and bit the ass off the DA. Personally I think your days in the shop are over. Don’t tell work about anything, they will try to use it against you to get rid of you. Go out on your terms, not theirs. The company’s insurance co will push to get rid of you ASAP to minimize their cost. The company will want you gone to keep their med insurance rates down. CYA. Don’t talk to them. Don’t post on social media. They will use it against you.