April 16th – Daytona Beach Shores, Florida

I had my physical therapy evaluation yesterday and I believe I must have done pretty well. I say this because after I was evaluated and did some suggested exercises, I was switched to twice per week sessions of PT rather than the 3 per week that the scheduler had originally put on my calendar. And after just 2 weeks of that, I’ve been moved to only 1 per week.

I’m still without pain or numbness, which has been a wonderful surprise following surgery (at least after that initial muscle spasm stuff I had to go through since the surgery was so long). The therapist had me do some bending that spooked me a bit, but she was reassuring in that I wouldn’t be causing any damage at this point. That is another major relief, as this “no BLT (bending, lifting, twisting)” was starting to get pretty old. I’m still not supposed to twist or lift heavy objects, but bending is now encouraged with moderation. I’ve decided I should work on looking at my computer in the manner shown below (ha!).

What have I been doing all this time you might ask (over a month)? I’ve been reading, doing 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzles, cleaning out files, taking lots of naps, resting, being very careful (no BLT!), following my nurse’s orders, and taking naps. I’m still not always sleeping a full night, so the naps have been necessary most days.

We’ve also had some contractors in the condo doing a bathroom remodel and a wall addition to connect a guest bedroom with the adjoining bathroom to make it a true ensuite bathroom. Nothing like having tripping hazards around a guy who really should not be tripping at this point. They’ve been very good at limiting their areas and I’ve been very good at avoiding the hazards, so everything is working out well.

I still have almost 2 months of rehab and recovery (I was told it was 8-12 weeks for full recovery) before our first trip of the year, so I’ll be doing much of the same for the coming weeks. The body is fearfully and wonderfully made as I’m amazed at what can be done to correct for defects as I get older. I won’t likely be playing any active sports in the future – they’re probably the cause of this back problem as well as my shoulder, my ankle, etc. And there’s that getting older thing to deal with too.

March 27th – Daytona Beach Shores, Florida

About 2 weeks ago was my surgery and today was my post-operative visit with the surgeon and his APRN. To make a long story short, it was a wonderful result, as the doctor’s exact words were that I was “ahead of the curve” in my recovery.

I’m happy to report that after some initial issues with muscle spasms, I am currently without pain and have no current issues with walking and standing. I still have to take it easy with no BLT (Bending/Lifting/Twisting), but I can start walking more and will be able to drive soon. I have to remember not to twist my body to look at things as I drive (just turn my head) and try to stay out of hard braking situations. My surgical wounds are healing nicely with no complications at this point.

Laura and I celebrated with a trip to the nearby Buc-cees for some pulled-pork barbeque sandwiches and peach cobbler for lunch (both were extremely tasty!). The last time I was in Buc-cees was with some visiting friends about a week before surgery and I had to lean against the wall and sit on the edge of an ice cream cooler every few minutes. This time I could walk around without stopping or having my feet fall asleep on me – no pain! What a relief!

Physical therapy starts in about 2 1/2 weeks. When I asked how long I should be walking the Advanced Practice Nurse said, “keep it under 3 miles”. There’s no trouble doing that at the current time. I’ll also keep my Carl Fredricksen walker with me on my initial outside walks, if for no other reason than to keep others from accidentally running into me – that was my only potential danger with walking around Buc-cees (those people are in a hurry).

Look out world, I have permission to venture outside again and I’m not afraid to do it. And the June trip is now a definite yes from the surgeon, assuming no other issues arise in the meantime.

March 18th – Daytona Beach Shores, Florida

After the first few days of euphoria, I’ve settled into what I would consider a more normal recovery. There are mostly muscle spasms (the doctor warned us that I was on my stomach a long time during surgery and would have this problem), and bowel issues caused by the pain medication. Those were finally resolved last night – whew! It’s still better than what I was experiencing before the surgery, but I can certainly tell that what I had was not a minor procedure.

Here’s the surgeon’s “signature” on my leg that he drew before the surgery, and the internal result of the surgery beyond the removal of crumbled vertebrae, arthritis, and constricting tissue. That picture shows vertebrae L4 and L5 fused together with some extra hardware to go with my artificial shoulder and the screws in my ankle. I already set off the TSA alarms most of the time anyway, so now it will be every time.

My private nurse is taking good care of me and I’m following orders as well as I can. I’m sleeping a lot and spending more time lying down than sitting up. I’m also walking regularly around the condo with my “Carl Fredricksen” walker, borrowed from a friend – you can look up the guy it’s named for, but just know that things are looking Up!

March 13th – Daytona Beach Shores, Florida

Back home from the hospital! Already! The doctor said he found much more arthritis, scar tissue, etc. in the spinal column than he expected and was surprised I was still walking. The surgery took 3 1/2 hours instead of the expected 2 hours, but he got it all and he’s very optimistic that I’ll be fully recovered within the 3 months between now and our next trip. Great news!

Now to just follow the doctor’s orders and more importantly, nurse Laura’s orders at this point. We’re praising God and thanking our extremely talented surgeon (he’s widely known for his innovative minimally invasive spine surgery we found out just the week before the surgery) for doing all of this – removing tissue, inserting 4 pins and 2 connecting rods, all with the use of only four 1-centimeter incisions. The “probe guy” explained to me as they were prepping me that they he would be putting probes in my head, arms, legs, feet, bowels, bladder and some other places that I forgot. They used this to tell them where to cut and where not to cut as they approached the spine itself (and they were working right up to the nerve wall) – whew! When I asked him how they did it, he got a twinkle in his eye, and he announced “technology”! I think I used to teach math and BASIC computer language to a guy like that. This young man was much younger – perhaps he was the guy’s grandson or even his great-grandson…

March 11th Update! – Let the Cutting Begin!

The Pedialyte and Pickle Juice Diet can now be licensed and sold at your local grocery store! Licensing arrangements are currently being worked out with Dr. Everts and Nurse Laura, but look for it wherever fine, medically approved, diet supplies can be found.

My sodium level is up 5 points and well into the normal range! We haven’t received official word from the very relieved PA just yet, but that should just be a formality once the security detail is called off and she can be released from her secure location. Her office said she was currently unavailable, but we all know what that means, right?

All joking aside, thanks be to God for this wonderful news. My surgery was originally scheduled for approximately 9 a.m. tomorrow morning and we have every reason to believe that this schedule will be adhered to. Thank you to everyone for your prayers and kind thoughts over the past weekend. At about 2 a.m. this morning, it was one of the few things I could think about while trying to find any relatively comfortable position to get some sleep.

March 11th – Daytona Beach Shores

Well, that wasn’t fun. We had a wrinkle in the surgery saga these past few days. I decided I needed to write about it to let off some steam. It seemed like a better idea than homicide.

Last Friday, my new Physician’s Assistant (PA) decided that I needed a couple more clicks of sodium in my blood before she’d clear me for my surgery, which is scheduled for tomorrow (yes, 4 days prior)! My appointment with her was scheduled for Monday, but she was out sick that day. After not “passing” her standard for my blood test again after the appointment on Friday, she scheduled another blood test for today.

A little background is probably in order. I’m in the process of changing Primary Care Physicians (PCPs) due to the fact that my prior doctor has gone to “concierge care” as of the first of the year (he’s one of the first targets in my homicide list, by the way, but I won’t share that story here). It is currently difficult in Florida to get an appointment with a new doctor, but I was transitioning to a new one recommended by my cardiologist and others. I was scheduled for May, which is about 6 months from my last appointment with my prior doctor, when my back pain progressed to the point of not being able to stand for long time periods or walk for distances longer than a block.

Did I mention that it’s difficult to get an appointment with a new doctor in Florida? Try getting one on short notice in order to get referred for X-rays or an MRI (without a referral, those take 6 months to schedule). There’s more to the story (including with my former doctor), but I finally got an appointment with a PA to the doctor to which I am transitioning. It pays to have a nurse as your wife, if you attempt to navigate this part of the medical world. In the process, my appointment with the new doctor got changed to June, but that’s part of the longer story. The PA is a very nice woman, but she apparently likes to go by the book – perhaps that’s a function of being a PA and not an MD, which might allow a bit more discretion (that’s my opinion). Thus, being a couple of points short of normal range, she was either unable or unwilling to cut me some slack (the surgeon had not identified it as a problem when we met with him two days before the PA appointment, by the way). He became unwilling to proceed at this point (professional courtesy probably, but I’d call it something else).

All of that is in preparation for what I went through over the weekend in order to get a better result this morning on my blood sample. Keep in mind that I underwent a cardiac stress test (which I passed with flying colors) and had my blood and urine sampled up the wazoo over the past month.

When I texted my son (the MD and oral surgeon) on Friday that 4 days prior to surgery I’m told by my new PA that I’m 2-3 points short of being normal in order to get her clearance, his exact words were “Well that’s silly.” Remember that part where I said something about a physician having more discretion and/or judgement? Based on Josh’s reaction, I think my impression was spot on. His recommendation was pickle juice and Liquid IV packets (Laura switched that to Pedialyte at the store). We also found out through a simple internet search that the pain medication I was prescribed by the new PA tended to lower sodium levels in the blood – yeah, this is where homicide started crossing my mind in her case.

I began the weekend without pain medications and on a diet of Pedialyte and pickle juice (besides some other foods, but they don’t add to the alliteration, so bear with me). The matronly nurse who drew my blood this morning asked about whether I relied on popcorn and potato chips, even before she heard my response – nice addition to the story and another indication that God has a sense of humor. She first asked, “hadn’t you been here last week” – yes, I got Amy for both blood draws – henceforth she will be known as “smooth Amy – the smoothest needle this side of the blood bank”. She was that good at inserting a needle in my vein. She also promised to do her best to get my sodium level up once she heard my reason for returning. Not sure how she would do that but at this point I’ll take all the help I can get, OK?

All of the above is to try to add some humor to what was probably the worst physically-pain-filled weekend I’ve experienced in my life. It did convince me that surgery is the right thing to do, and that the recovery may not be nearly as bad as enduring the pain and lack of sleep of the past few days – at least they know how to kill the pain. It’s taken many personal prayers, good nursing care from my wife, and prayers and well-wishes from friends and family, along with sleepless hours, but I have now survived the weekend and the blood is in the can for the analysts to do their work. I’m waiting on the results right now and beginning to feel the effects of the pain killers finally kicking in for the first time in 3 days.

I’ll spare you the rest of the details, but writing this has likely kept me out of prison. How’s that for being illustrative of the pen being mightier than the sword?

Watch for an update (yay or nay) in the next few hours.

March 8th – Daytona Beach Shores, Florida

We’ve just had a few more visitors as Michael & Janet came down from South Dakota for a few days. They were originally planning a longer trip here until my back issues caused some changes in our schedule and theirs. Things got busy and crowded with the 83rd annual Bike Week going on in the area, but we had a great time together.

The t-shirts (in the picture on the right) were a going-away gift from the LCMS Board of Directors – interesting story – ask me while we’re having a refreshing beverage sometime. Michael has the other one on that they gave us in the picture on the left – it says, “This is my been there, done that, got the t-shirt, t-shirt”. We did actually have some fun during those meetings at times, besides doing serious work on church business. Michael was the chairman, and I was his vice-chairman for most of our 13-year tenure on the board. Michael and Janet have become our good friends during that time, and we enjoyed their visit immensely.

With all of the doctor appointments and testing that I’ve gone through the past 2 months, I am really ready to get this over with. Even with the expected pain and slow recovery (8-12 weeks), it has to be better than the current issues I’m having with walking, standing, and just moving around. I’ve been feeling like a really old man on most days lately as the pain has gotten worse – nothing like that “pleasant gentleman” to which the neurosurgeon referred, I’m afraid. Time to get this done.

February 24th – Orlando, Florida

It was a great visit with the grandkids and their parents this past week. We dropped them off at the airport yesterday morning and stopped at Laura’s parents’ place on our way home in the afternoon.

Disney’s parks and Universal Studios were the places that the grandkids wanted to see, and they got 4 full days doing it. A good time was had by all, with Star Wars being a favorite Disney attraction and Harry Potter world being the big Universal draw. We’re glad we didn’t try to keep up with them and got a number of projects done during the week, along with visiting some favorite food places.

I’m not up to walking that far, so I was the transporter to and from the parks – “Grandpa Uber” as they called me. What a joy to see their excited anticipation on the way into the parks and their tired, but happy faces on the way back. It took me back to my first visit to Disneyland when I was a kid.

Here are just a few photos of the week that they were in Florida – even though the days at the beach weren’t sunny, the days in parks made up for that with sun and a bit more warmth the last few days.

February 18th – Daytona Beach Shores, Florida

It’s grandkids time! With a late flight pickup last night, we’re slowly getting moving today, but looking forward to a week with Story and Jude (and my daughter, Jessie, and her husband, Val).

They’re here for a Disney/Universal parks visit, but today is Daytona Beach. It’s a rainy morning and the forecast isn’t great for the Daytona 500 race his afternoon. We’re not going to the race but were hoping to catch views of the Thunderbirds and the Goodyear blimp for the grandkids. We’ll see how that works out.

Let the spoiling begin!

February 12th – Daytona Beach Shores, Florida

We’ve had some visitors already this winter in Florida and are looking forward to more before spring and summer get us to thinking about travels again this year.

Our most recent visitors were my sister, Miriam, and her friend, Karen. Both have been here before and they got some of the worst weather we’ve had for company – temperatures in the 50’s and 60’s with high winds for several days of their visit. Fortunately, they were looking for seafood and so we were able to take care of that indoors overlooking the water and also found some sheltered outdoor dining and drinking options on the water. A great time was had in spite of the weather – also glad they had been here before and knew that it can be much nicer than this. The 2nd picture below is the obligatory ladies’ photo of feet in the sand…

We also got some good news while they were here about my back troubles. The bad news we had received before their visit was that it was “severe spinal stenosis” and that I needed surgery. The good news was that I can have laminectomy surgery on March 12th, and we should be ready for our first trip in June if all goes well with recovery and rehab.

It was kind of sobering to hear the term “severe”, but I’m glad we have an opportunity to fix it and that we can get this done sooner rather than later. Being able to stand for anything longer than 5 minutes or walk more than a block or two is kind of required for most travel these days. I’m not ready to hang up my passport and plop myself in front of a TV for the rest of my life. So off to surgery I will go.

In the surgeon’s post-visit notes, he referred to me as “a pleasant 72-year-old gentleman”. He looked to be about the age of my oldest son (low-40’s), who’s an oral surgeon. Since I’ve been feeling like a grumpy old man with this back problem lately, I think being a pleasant 72-year-old gentleman sounds much better.