Angie drove me to the Hartford Hospital emergency room on Friday, August 11 at 5:00 AM.

Based on an earlier ER visit, I told them that I was in a lot of pain, so we got attended to fairly quickly (it was uncomfortable - pee was building up in my bladder).We had warned the nurses that I required a smaller catheter (14) because of a stricture, but they knew better (sarcasm intended) and tried a medium catheter (16) with no luck and much to my discomfort. They then put in a 14 with better luck. We were back home by 7:30.

A day or so after that ER visit I developed a UTI (Urinary Tract Infection), probably to the multiple efforts to catheterize me  (unbeknownst to me at the time). The pee coming into the catheter looked like the river that Moses changed to blood in the movie "The Ten Commandments".  I got in touch with my urology doctor's office, and they thought it was due to radiation damage from 6 years ago together with having a catheter.

On August 15th I started leaking pee around the catheter, so I called the on call urologist. He instructed us to once again go to the emergency room. At least this time the pressure was being relieved by the leak. This visit was an exercise in futility. We got there at 10:00 PM, and waited for hours to get a room, then hours to be seen by a nurse. We went through the same routine about catheter size, but at least they used a 14 catheter. The only problem is that they removed the old one, cleaned it and put it back in.

One good thing that happened during that visit is that the doctor did a blood test and discovered that I did have a UTI. She got me on Keflex ASAP and that would cure the UTI over the next week or so.

BLADDER WOES

My back has been great - I celebrated 3 weeks this morning and there have been no issues or pain.

I wish I could say the same for my bladder! Spinal surgery can cause bladder and bowel issues. My bowels worked fine when we came home. The bladder was another story.

They had catherized me during spinal surgery, and they removed that catheter before I went home. I was "leaky" but able to urinate some. The problems were that I started having bladder spasms the second night home from surgery - Monday, July 31st. Dr Kesler's nurse Amanda wanted me to come to their office for a bladder scan, to see if I was  retaining urine. I told her that I was still too shaky/weak to come to their office. I finally was able to come in on Thursday and I was retaining urine ( 500 ml).

They catherized me that day (Thursday, August 3rd). This catheter stayed in until Thurday Aug 10th. This was fine with me because without the catheter my sleep was affected by nightly 2 - 3 hour bouts of bladder spasms. During the spasms my bladder "shut down" and as soon as they stopped I would/leak/pee. With the catheter, there were no bladder spasms and I slept like a baby.

Amanda did another bladder scan on Aug 10th and I only had 27 ml in my bladder, so they took the catheter out. That very night, I had bladder spasms again that started at midnight, and were still going strong at 5:00 AM. I called the on call urologist, and he instructed me to go to the Hartford Hospital ER.

To Be Continued on the next page

The next few days consisted of my getting stronger - I slept a lot and my appetite returned. My wife Angie was wonderful - helping me dress and bathe.

The words for me were "BLT" - no bending, lifting or turning. Angie had these signs all over the house.

Around two weeks after surgery, and had a follow up visit at my surgeon's office. They said I was doing great and they removed the staples. It was time for me to keep improving and start doing things for myself.

I was up and walking the day after spine surgery. They also had me walking a small set of stairs. Angie & I thought I would be spending a few days in a rehab center. The physical therapists were against it - they thought I was doing well enough to go home, plus we avoided the chance of infection.

I think that I received excellent care while in St Francis Hospital - from the doctors all the way down to the people that cleaned the room. I tried to thank anyone who did anything for me, and as a result I got a nickname - the "Rock Star Patient". I had the most serious surgery of the floor, and I complained the least.

Coming home was a little scary - the physical therapists showed us how to get in and out of bed, get in and out of chairs, etc. I didn't have much of an appetite after the surgery, and this continued for a few days at home.

I started having bladder spasms on the second day - these would wake me up from a dead sleep. We called my urologist, and they wanted me to come in for a bladder scan, which we resisted for a couple of days because I was so wiped out. We finally went to the office and the bladder scan showed that I was retaining urine. They put in a catheter.

I was nervous about the catheter because I had some bad experiences with a catheter in the emergency room. This was a piece of cake. I immediately felt better and started sleeping for 10 hours at a clip. I was also taking a daily nap - I was making up for months of sleep deprivation.    

July 26th was the date scheduled for my back surgery. There wasn't much time to prepare mentally - but I was ready. The past few months had been very painful. I had sharp pains in my hamstrings when I tried to get out of a chair. Sitting on a toilet seat was like sitting on a bed of nails. I woke up several times  a night with numbness in my right leg. As scary as the surgery sounded, I could not go on much longer in the state I was in.

I had to meet with my urologist, my cardiologist, my general practitioner and get their approvals.
Angie drove me to St Francis Hospital early in the morning of the 26th. My daughter Lisa came down and stayed the whole day with Angie. My daughter Heather met them for lunch.

The level of support I got in the days leading up to the 26th was amazing - I think it helped me to gain strength to face the challenge - spine surgery is very serious. The surgery lasted over 5 hours. During the surgery they cleaned out a diseased vertebra, repaired a cracked vertebra, and fused everything together with 4 rods.