The “C” Word – 1 Year plus 124 days Major setback

Just as we thought we had all our ducks in a row for the next surgery, George went and took a tumble in the bathroom and ended up breaking his neck.  He did not know that is what happened, he just figured he hit the wall hard and it was his head and upper back that were injured. 

After he fell, he managed to painfully get himself into the bedroom and lay down.  After trying to reach over the mountain of blankets to get the house phone he remembered that his cell phone was on his belt buckle the whole time.  He called me at work to please come home.

I found him on the bed in major pain.  He could not sit up at all on his own (he tried by elevating the adjustable bed).  I told him we should probably call 911 because he could not get up and I could not assist at all.  We live on the second floor of our home and the stairs were not going to be possible.  After hemming and hawing and after taking a pain pill that did not work, George surrendered to not only my advice but that of a nurse friend and also his general physicians nurse and I called 911. 

The emergency crew decided to take spinal cord preventative measures and put him in a full cervical/spinal brace for the ride to the hospital.  After getting checked out they saw a break on the C6 vertebrae and some torn ligaments across the back of his neck which were or had been bleeding so he needed to be admitted for observation.

The next morning the neurosurgeon, Dr. Menon, came in and told him that if the break had gone just 2mm more it would have also affected his spinal cord and left him paralyzed from the neck down.  We are SO fortunate that this sort of break did not occur. He also tore a whole lot of ligaments across the back of his neck and that is probably what is causing the majority of pain issues. George was in excruciating pain and was being given a lot of medications to try to help with that.  The NP (nurse practitioner) Lan started taking control and she got a full CTO (cervical thoracic brace) for him which not only holds his neck stable but also his upper spinal column.  The doctor thinks that the break will fuse back together if the neck is held immobile for 6-12 weeks minimum.  Along the way they will re-check to see if the bone is fusing or not.  If necessary they will make changes along the way.  The first step would be to get a “halo” brace and if that did not work then an 8 hour surgery would be required.  We are praying that this brace does the job.                                        

[Note:  George’s C1-C7 vertebrae had fused from seven bones to one long bone, something akin to ‘candle waxing’.  What broke was the “extra bone” growth that fused C5 to C6, not the original vertebrae itself.]

The first few days were very hard. Any movement and George’s pain level would spike from a 2 or 3 up to a 9.  He required IV quick acting drugs before he made any small move.  Yesterday he had very few spikes.  Today, without any IV drugs he never spiked higher than a 5 or 6 on his scale and those were very brief.  The Occupational Therapist had him walk around the “block” today and he did okay.  We asked a few questions for when we go home and that was the end of it.  Both the OT and PT are pleased with his progress and how he is moving about.  Tomorrow will be final “rest” day here and we hope to get our walking papers on Monday morning.

We will have to make some changes for a bit – lots of them.  George will now sleep downstairs in the guestroom for which I have ordered a 12” wedge to enable him to sleep better.  I also decided that we aren’t getting younger and, in order to have George as comfortable as possible I am going to get rid of the smaller sofa in the house and replace it with two lift/recliner chairs.  This will really benefit George as the furniture we have is not conducive to getting up and down out of them very easily.  I suspect that his new chair will be where he spends at least 80% of his time for a long time!  The second chair will be for me if I would like to sleep near him.  Not to mention that I will love being comfortable as well!  A big thanks to neighbors Steve, Ken and Kevin for moving the couch out to the garage so I can get the area ready for the new chairs!  I will have to rely on others to do any “heavy lifting” in the near future because George is not allowed to lift more than 5-7 pounds – and definitely cannot bend over to assist in any way!

All the plans he had for being “free” and spending time in Roseville with his grandkids and tinkering in the garage have fallen to the wayside.  Those nice long walks he made three times a week with his buddies are done for the time being.  Probably the most significant change is that we have to postpone his cancer surgery until a later time next year.  Fortunately, the cancer is slow growing so it should not make a huge impact.  This will also give an opportunity to see how the two tumor areas do over the next few months which will give us an idea of how much or little they grow and if any other tumors show up.

George is making peace with those changes.  He is frustrated, of course, this happened to him.  It would be easy to take a “woe is me”, “why do these things keep happening to me” stance.  Very easy.  We are both coming to terms with the changes this accident had on us – trying to stay strong for one another.  George wants to be a “better patient” this time because he knows this impacts me as much as if not more than it does him.  It certainly puts a monkey wrench on certain aspects of our lives that is for sure!  I have had time only for one quick “pity party” so far.  I am not fretting about what will or will not get done in time for the holidays.  Those Christmas goodies may or may not be made in time. I can barely think about what should be done tomorrow let alone in a week!  I keep a pad with me to jot down things that I need to bring for home or look up because I surely will forget if I don’t.   I think once we are home I will have more time to get things done at home.  For now I am at the hospital for 10-12 hours a day.  It was more for the first few days but now I try to get home by 8 or 9PM to give myself time to unwind.  By the time I do that I literally fall into bed and sleep soundly for about 6 hours.  Then the brain starts working and I wake up to start gathering things for the day and get a chore or two done before heading back to the hospital.  It will be so much easier when we are all home again - - different, but easier.  

Two steps forward and one large one back.  We will get to where we are going… it’s just going to take longer than we anticipated.