Joe’s BodyBlog

Hey everyone, the surgery went well and I am doing great. They removed about 8 mm’s of disk that was pushing on my nerve root and causing me lots of pain. They said it can take up to 1 year for the nerve to heal and that it takes about 1 mm a week to heal. So considering the pain was down my main nerve going down my right leg, I think the full healing process for the nerve will indeed take 1 year. I haven’t taken any pain meds or muscle relaxers in over 1 week, which makes me feel fantastic! I am sleeping much better now, and I have been sleeping through the night, which I don’t think I have done in about 1 year. I am going to be on disability until mid October, but that is OK since I can’t sit at the computer for more than 10-15 minutes at a clip anyhow. As a database person that means I can’t really work. They have me walking and stretching for my PT right now. I walk 3 miles a day which I worked myself up to over the past two weeks. Initially it caused some muscle spasms, but now since I am stretching I am doing much better. My stretching is very basic, forward and backwards bends, laying down knees to the chest, but it works, I can feel myself getting loser every day! I am not aloud to lift more then 10 lbs at a time, which means I am slowly doing household chores. Can’t even lift my vacuum  cleaner to clean my house, but my friends, neighbors, family and my wife and her family are all helping me out there. I will be on that lifting restriction for at least the next 5-6 weeks. So based on this, I am getting lots of reading done. I have finished 4 of the 7 Harry Potter books that I was back logged on, I am a late Harry Potter fan, so I am on Year 7 now. That will be done by the end of the week. Well my computer time is up, time to go stretch….

OK So I am both happy and sad that my surgery is this week. I don’t feel like going through another surgery, but I am in so much pain that at the same time I am looking forward to it. I have learned a lot about the procedure and the recovery over the past couple of weeks and while recovering from surgery is never fun, this whole process is reminding me why I need to stay on top of my fitness. What I don’t understand is how my disk herniated 4 mm over 9-10 months. Did I do something to make it worse? Was it golf? Some of my stretches? Did I push myself too hard to get back in the gym and workout? These questions are things I will need to think about during my recovery for when I start my PT. My surgeon told me that he isn’t going to send me to a PT, outside of the first couple of sessions because I described to him everything I had already been doing for exercising and he said I was doing the right things, especially the core workouts.

Something tells me I have a huge tendency to push myself to hard and I am not building the proper foundation for my strength training and that is why I keep hurting myself. I am going to find a good trainer to help me get on the right track when I am cleared to workout again. My brother had sent my nephew to a guy, not sure what his specialty is called, but this guy has been helping my nephew a lot with his post ACL recovery since he is playing Division 1 Lacrosse in college. Anyhow, I need to find a guy like that, someone who can point out my body’s weaknesses and imbalances so I can properly build the foundation I need to help myself to get stronger. 3 surgeries over the past 4 years all from injuring myself while working out are telling me I need help.  So  that will be my next goal post surgery, get my body the proper work to rebuild my foundation of strength and flexibility.

I have been to 2 Neurosurgeons this week and my impending back surgery is now confirmed. So over the past 4 years I have had 4 surgeries and only 1, my Lasik was cosmetic. All of them have been orthopedic in nature. The fact that I am having a Neurosurgeon do this surgery is because of everything I have read about disk surgery and from people I know who have had it done, and they all said that this is to be done by a Neuro. I am not messing around with my back and spinal column and my nerves on this one. It looks like the month of September will be a tough one for me, they recommend 3-4 weeks off for this, then I will be slowly working my way back. At least this is a "smaller" procedure then what back surgery used to be in the past, instead of making a huge open cut in my back, they will make a much smaller incision through the muscle (instead of stripping the muscle away from my spine) to get to the disk that is pushing on my spinal nerve. They will cut away the portion of the disk to lessen the pressure on my nerve. They said that almost immediately when I wake up I will feel less pain in my back and less pain in my leg. It will take the nerve some time to heal from the disk damage, but there is a pretty high success rate for this surgery helping with my pain and my issue.

The recovery is going to suck though. I can’t ride in a car for two weeks post-op, so that means I will be house bound except for my ride home after the surgery. With my separation from my wife, that puts me in a bind to have some help around the house, so that issue needs to be worked out. Then I will still have about 4-6 weeks more of post op recovery to deal with, mostly PT and trying to get back to work. Thank god I ave good family (my side) and friends, other wise I would be screwed, ordering take out just to get some hot meals…

My biggest issue is going to be to eat clean as much as possible initially after the surgery. I have a tendency to a little lazy and decide to eat junk. At this pace I won’t get my abs by 40, but damn it surgery and all, I am going to get close. Once I recover from this, I am going to be single so I have to look good and feel good so I can see what life is like…………. ugh .

So it looks like I am going to have to have back surgery! Yuck!! My disk at L4/L5 has herniated more, it went from 4 mm last November 2007 to 8 mm in the July 2008 and it is pinching the nerve root. That explains all of the leg pain I have been having. I am very unhappy about this development. It is going to take me a few weeks to get everything set up, meeting a neurosurgeon, picking the date of surgery and getting my benefits set up, so I don’t know when it will occur yet, but most likely very late August early September. It will be a nice 40th birthday for me… Maybe I will get abs by 41…

So this week has been interesting for me. I haven’t worked out at all. My back has been so pain full I am lucky to get up in the morning. My wife and I separated on Saturday (she moved out..) and we signed the paperwork today. In NC, separation agreements have to be notarized to be legal documents, so since we wrote it ourselves and we are hoping to reconcile, we had to get it signed by a notary. The funny thing is, since Saturday and with the document finished we have been getting along great. We are actually acting like nothing has changed between us. We both feel it must be because the stress has lowered after 4+ months of arguments. Only time will tell if we work things out. I honestly hope we do, I admit it I still love my wife.

Anyhow, back to the subject - Keep on fighting. So I had my second MRI on my back this past week, two chiropractors appointments (a third tomorrow), a Dr’s appointment today to go over my High Blood Pressure readings, and Friday I am having a Nerve test done to see if the disk issues have caused any problems with nerve damage. Somewhere in all of this I have to work… But it will be interesting to see what the second MRI shows in regards to my back. My Dr’s (yes plural) think that the L4/L5 disk has migrated and that is why I am having so much pain in my right leg. They want me to try and keep working out in the meantime, but with my personal life and the pain I am having, it has been really hard to get motivated. After the nerve test on Friday, I will most likely schedule a nerve block procedure for next week to help with the pain management. Then I get to go to a neurosurgeons consult!! I am trying to avoid surgery at all costs, but as I was told today, it just might be the best option for me. I just don’t want to go under the knife AGAIN! UGH!

So in the meantime I am trying to keep on fighting and working out. I know mornings suck for me, so I just have to get up and get moving, then  workout in the after noon/ early evening. Heck I am single now so I don’t have to adhere to anyone’s schedule except my own.. if mornings didn’t suck so much I would do HIIT Cardio work at the house since I have a treadmill. It’s not like I would be bothering anyone, my wife even took the cat with her. Ok enough of feeling sorry for myself!

Too bad it is in my height! Yup, you read that correctly. Since 2 of my disks have been so compressed I have lost 1 inch in height. I used to be 5′ 11", yesterday when I went to the Doctor for a "second" opinion on dealing with my back I was measured at 5′ 10". They told me the see this often with people who have more then 1 disk causing issues in the spine. I had heard about this happening to people, but damn this sucks! They said that there are people who stretch themselves back out again, but with the pain I am having these days it will be kind of hard. I am having Sciatica pain in my right leg now. It is constant and about an 8 or 9 out of 10 on the pain scale. They have suggested I try a nerve block next to help with the pain. But before they will do the block they want an updated MRI because they feel that one of the disk (probably L4/L5 based on my symptoms) is pushing against the nerves. They want to isolate that area with the nerve block so I can get to be pain free, calm the nerve and then calm the muscles in my right side (Erector Spine, Glutes, and Hamstrings). The issue is, this doctor couldn’t get an MRI for me until the end of August, I am not waiting a month to get help. The nerve issues only started 2 weeks ago, but I was traveling for work and couldn’t get in to see another doctor until I got back. I really wanted an opinion about Spinal Decompression, and boy did I get it. The Doctor I spoke with told me he hasn’t read any studies that have him convinced the therapy works. Makes me uncomfortable about going forward with the decompression, but in the meantime I have to do something for the pain, besides Vicoden every 5-6 hours .

The one thing they told me is that they were glad to hear I keep working out!! They said they feel I would be worse off if I didn’t work out. So that was good to hear! Tomorrow will be another day!

Lastly, they said I have to get my stress level down. My BP was 151/90 and this is not the first time is has bee that high. My impending separation from my wife is causing me lots of stress and adding to my health problems. Another benefit to working out!

So tomorrow I am going back to my new dr. I am probably going to start doing spinal decompression soon. I haven’t yet spoken to my wife about it, but I have to change my health for the better, not sure how much of a vote she has anyway since we are separating. Tomorrow I will find out what will be involved. I am still working out regardless of how I feel. Being in pain, a lot of pain everyday is draining me. Add to that the fact that my wife is moving out in two weeks… Of course none of this stopped me from breaking 100 yesterday playing Golf!! Not a good golfer so I was happy to break 100.

So I follow a very clean diet, but I have to have cheat meals! Out of the 42 (6 meals per day by 7 days) meals I eat each week, I allow myself 3-4 cheat meals. I don’t like doing all of them in one day. For me that doesn’t work, because I binge eat and cause myself more problems after my cheat day is done. So instead I work cheat meals in for 1 of my six in a day, but I try not to have them on back to back days. Every once and a while I do, but for the most part I keep them spaced apart so I don’t crave them more often. For example this week, Wednesday’s nights are golf night, so I know I will most likely drink a few beers and after golf when we go to dinner I usually will have something bad for dinner. So this past week, I had Chicken Wings at Wild Wing Cafe, and they tasted great. I of course know they are horrible for me. But I got them out of my system and I won’t eat them again in a long time.  Then on Thursday I had a little desert after my lunch (Hersey’s bar with Almonds). Again, I got it out of my system, I won’t have anything like that for weeks now. It is a moderation thing, since I know my eating habits can go very bad very quick, so this keeps me in check.

The good news from all of this, I am down 2 pounds! From 185 to 183! My cut is going in the right direction.

So I decided to try a new dr. for my back. I don’t want surgery and I am getting sick of the muscle relaxers and pain killers. Acupuncture, Chiropractic care and Modern Medicine haven’t really helped. Well not entirely true, Acupuncture has helped a lot but the way my insurances works with it, I have to get reimbursed for it and it takes 6 weeks to get my money back. So if I go once a week to help my back that is a lot of money out of pocket before I get anything back. This new dr. is a Chiropractor, but he takes a different approach. I told him my adjustments weren’t holding and he feels he knows why and said he would include that in the treatment plan for me. He also gave me a suggestion as to how I can relieve the pain that I have going down my leg. He said the curve in my lower spin is gone, so all of the force and weight of my upper body is putting stress on my lower spine. If you look at any pictures of a spine, it has a curve going into the sacrum (hips), mine doesn’t. I am to put a foam roller under my low back and prop my legs up and let gravity do it’s thing for 20 minutes. This will relax the muscles and allow my spine to get back to it’s natural alignment. Nobody ever suggested that to me before, but it makes sense. I did it last night and by the end of 20 minutes I was in lots of pain… my muscles were spasming like crazy, but once I removed the roller I felt so much better. I also did my inversion table yesterday for a while after I did a cardio workout and it felt great. Hopefully this will be fix for me. This dr. also does the spinal decompression therapy, but since he knows it isn’t covered he doesn’t push it on people. The last guy I went to was too much of a salesmen for this. It turned me off because it seemed like he didn’t really listen to my health issues. I have to go back next week to see what the new dr. wants to do to treat me. I like my other Chiropractor but I don’t think he is really helping me, only because he is set in the way he is treating me and I am not improving. We will see what happens next.

OK, so I have been getting reminders from bodyblog about keeping myself current with my blog. If you couldn’t tell by the title, I have had my reasons for not keeping it up. After 8 years of marriage my wife has decided she needs space because she isn’t happy. I am of course upset by this news, it has been a long time coming if I think about it. I am not about to air all of my dirty laundry on this post, but I had to get it off my chest since it will make it more real and I am in disbelief at the moment. Trust me I understand that our life together is not everything it could be, but separating to me isn’t the answer, it just creates more problems. But I can’t stop her, so I have to let her go.

Honestly, I am doing ok with the news. We couldn’t go on the way that we were. She was miserable and so was I. My issues with my back were only making things worse for me, my overall health was declining as well. It was a good thing that I continued to workout or I would probably have had a heart attack.. Seriously! My blood pressure was through the roof (157/98) at it’s worst. It has come back down now that I am at peace with the decisions we have made to separate. Now we just need to work out the details which I am hoping won’t get ugly. The wife has laid out her "plan" which is a little unrealistic, but I am not arguing with her about it right now, I will let the mediator/lawyer show her that info later. If I bring it up now it will not get received well.  I just want to protect my emotional, Financial and physical health now. I have to look out for myself. I can’t worry about her anymore, since she doesn’t worry about me. I am getting a raw deal here, but I understand where it is coming from. The bad part is I am starting to not want to be with her at all anymore even though I acknowledge I still love her.

So I am dedicating my life to my own health and well being now. I am breaking my bad workout habits and committing myself to my "Abs by 40" goal.  I have to do this for my emotional health, but more for my health in general. The back issues have improved the more I work out. Plus losing 15 lbs and 4.5 inches off my stomach helped a lot. Now I just need to keep it up. I have messed around with different workouts, but I haven’t created a plan and stuck to it. So that is next. Especially since I don’t have to take her into account anymore with my planning, which I used to do. But no more. I might just go back to my Body For Life workout schedule for a while. It is a good schedule for me, and I did my best while I was dedicated to it.

The odds are against my wife and I getting back together, the statistics say %80 of couples that separate from their marriage get divorced, but my hope is that we are in the %20 percent that work things out. Our lives together have bucked the statistics already so there might be hope.