05/19/2024
Good Morning Good People!! It's SunDay FunDay @ Shenanigans.. It's me, Karen and I want to give you all a short update without boring anyone!! Many of you are aware of the back and neck surgeries that I've been going through for two years now. Months back, after my back surgery, I tried to come back to work if only for a few hours. That didn't work out as planned!!!! I was so full of hope that my back had been fixed. After my surgeon went in and removed the cyst that was crushing my spine, cleaned up a few things and shortly after surgery, that pain was gone!!! And I thought for good until I found out that I had an epidural while I was under. That kept me numb for a few months. Lol. I just found out that he was unable to remove all of the cyst, leaving a piece behind. The entire cyst cannot be removed because of the damage and taking it all out would cause the spinal fluid to flow. Kind of like when a surgeon won't remove a bullet because it would cause more problems. I'll worry about that later. After my back surgery, I had more images taken and within 6 days I was on the operating table, undergoing a 6 hour, emergency neck surgery, the day before Thanksgiving. This is when the trouble begins. Through all of this, I only had my surgeon and Dr. Heller. Dr. Heller, after 30 years was the doctor that finally found out
What was going on. Because of that, I was only going to see him through my recovery. I never even talked to a Neurologist for information. I was going to be in fantastic hands!!! Between the neck surgery and my first after surgery follow up is when Dr. Heller had the stroke. It was a few weeks with no follow up care and as I waited for Dr. Heller to get better, he passed away. Now, I just went through major surgeon and was released from the hospital with less Healthcare info than you get when you get a tooth pulled. I did anterior (front) and posterior (back) of my neck. In the front, C2 - C6 were all individually scraped, gages and plates were screwed into my neck. They were all Digenerative, crumbling and going off track, slipping into the spinal cord area crushing nerves. The same nerves that communicate with your brain to keep your body doing what it's suppose to. Once the front was secured, I was flipped over, shaved a strip of hair smack down the middle and fileted me open like a fish with a 3 1/2 to 4 inch incision down the middle of my head and stopping at the base of my neck. With the posterior part, my spine, C2 - C6 was laced up like a sneaker with titanium wires....It's a mess!! This is all from untreated, misdiagnosed whiplash from a car accident on November 4th, 1999. With the imaging readings from the MRI and x-rays, they only read and posted the results from C2 down. All of my damage was higher up onto C -C1. Even with C2 being so damaged, they still didn't take that extra few minutes to check the disk above C2 to track down where the damage started. All of the untreated issues, after so long living with it, many more issues branched out. My BP has been so high due to the constant pain that it's caused me a TIA and my heart to enlarge from all the stress put on my heart. I get many bladder infections. The nerve signals won't communicate between my bladder and brain. Because Of this, I'll have 5 days of urine retention. The first time it happened, I had no idea that I had an infection. I went to Dr. Heller and he did the kidney test. Yes, I was really infected, I had blood in my urine and I had turned Sepsis.
If I didn't go to Heller for the test, I would have died from Sepsis within a few days and nobody would have know why. Craziness. Bad thing, I have HMO. I needed a GP to refer me to a Neurologist. My GP was gone, his office crazy and at the time, I had no idea what the inside of my neck looked like or if was even healing. I was searching for a GP, making sure to list everything on the new patient packet and was denied care by 2 doctors because I have so many issues to take over. I was finally able to get back with Dr. Syed and at this time, I still don't know anything about what was done. I have no idea what my future up here will be and there's a HUGE chance of being disabled from here on out.
I'm so sorry that I took so long with this. I wanted to explain it as best as I could to the best of my knowledge. At this time, I have no idea what Dr. Syed will start with in figuring it all out. I really want and need to get back to work so that I can see all of you!!!
