The Broken Soldier

I had my staples removed Friday.  Feels like getting stung by a bee, thirty two times.  The PA gave me some info and instructions.  The surgeon worked on multiple levels, not just L5-S1.  The 8-10 inch incision made sense after that.  Still not sure what he did in there, but it hurts like hell.

The instructions I received during this last visit are a lot different from those I got when I was discharged from the hospital.  At first I was to stay off my feet - avoid sitting, standing, walking, etc., for more than 10 minutes at a time - for about 4-6 weeks.  As of yesterday, I basically have the same instructions, it’s just that they’ve been extending for at least another 6 weeks.  Cool as medical folk try to be, you can tell when things haven’t gone as well as they expected.  I figured 4-6 weeks after surgery I’d be starting physical therapy.  Now it’s looking more like 2-3 months post op before PT, depending on how I’m doing then.

I’m on a truck load of medication.  I’m taking more, in fact, in one sitting than I’m supposed to - not exceeding the daily allowable dosage, but taking 2/3rds of the maximum allowable in one sitting.  It’s the only thing that works, and even then relief is temporary.  The remaing 1/3rd I take at night before bed, typically giving me a couple hours of decent sleep.  Then I wake up, roll around in bed for several hours, and get up and go outside to smoke djarums.  It’s very peaceful at 2 a.m.  I watch TV until Sarah gets up.  I’ve committed most of the regularly cycled info-mercials to memory.  More useless info, like my college degrees, but much less expensive.

You know something?  I hate being right.  I said this would happen.  One can’t have compression of this sort for this long and recover.  This first surgery, which would have likely been the only surgery necessary had the Guard and Army moved quickly on this, has cost TriCare $25k.  Physical therapy, which will be prescribed if the docs think it will work, will be 3 times a week for 4-16 weeks at $150 a pop.  The various devices the physiatrist will prescribe run from $50 to close to a thousand.  Fusion, which is the next step, will cost about $30k, at least, depending on how many levels are fused.  These costs, as I’ve spoken to before, don’t include the costs the VA will incur paying my disability compensation and future medical care, and this doesn’t include the costs of treating illnesses, like major clinical depression with anxiety, secondary to this injury.  Why was this a good approach?  An approach that assures everyone involved loses.