While I was in the hospital, I was on many medications and painkillers. As such, my memory is a bit fuzzy with some of the events that occurred. In my previous post, I made a couple errors. The x-ray didn't show the fractures, but it did show degeneration, scoliosis, and a decrease in bone density. They admitted me to the hospital because of that because they wanted to run more tests. It wasn't until the MRI that they noticed the compression fractures. When they mentioned the possibility of bone metastases, the decision was made to transfer to Emory.
The transfer was interesting... because it was the first time I had rode in an ambulance. About a 2 hour drive to Atlanta when all I could see was the cars behind us offers a unique perspective to our usual travel route. Once I got checked in and situated everything came fast. I was suddenly being visited by nurses, techs, doctors and everyone else working on that floor. They got me set up quick for what would be the start of my 3 week stay.
One of the interesting things about Emory was that they were able to bring a portable x-ray machine into my hospital room instead of me having to be transferred and lay flat on a table. I still had to turn on my side for the x-ray, which was painful, but it was a lot better. Another interesting thing was I could call for my food at any time and pick from a wide variety of meals and combos. Emory offers this meal service to the oncology floor since patients quite understandably may not be on a regular schedule for meals. While initially thinking this was great, after 3 weeks the food got a little old. But I digress.
Dr. Lawson came to see me and mentioned he thought the fractures were due to the steroids causing osteoporosis, but he wanted to get a brain trust to look it over before confirming anything. Luckily, after further review it was decided the spinal fractures weren't caused by a spread of my disease and actually caused by a weakening of my bone structure from my high dose of Prednisone. Endocrinologists were brought in to analyse my situation and work a solution out to not only taper my steroids off at an increased (but steady and safe) rate, but to build my bone tissue back up by prescribing Vitamin D as well as a drug called Forteo, which helps bone tissue grow back faster for people with osteoporosis.
The medications from the endocrinologists were the long term plan for repairing my spine. Unfortunately, you can't wrap the spine in a cast like you can a broken leg or arm, so the immediate fix was something called kyphoplasty. They go into the vertebra with a fast setting cement to fill in the cracks and expand the bone to normal levels to retain the shape of the vertebra and the height of the person.
The day before my procedure I was actually feeling fairly well. A physical therapist came in and got me out of bed and I used a walker to go down the hallway a bit and back to my room. It was mainly to get me up and moving so my muscles didn't weaken. It was tough to get in and out of bed as it was, so I was hoping they would fix my back and I would strengthen back up. I should mention that during this time the threat of a huge snow storm was falling over Georgia and would make the next few days interesting. The day of my procedure was actually when the snow first started coming down, and many of the staff had to stay overnight to keep of the roads.
For the procedure, they needed to move me to a stretcher and wheel me down to to the radiology department where they would perform the kyphoplasty on me. When I went to move, I felt my lower back having that same sharp, stabbing pain as in my mid back. I didn't want to think the worst, but it made things difficult. The day went quick, between the naps I took before the procedure and the sedation afterwords keeping me knocked out.
Over the next couple days it was a flurry of pain management techniques, some PT, and waiting while a transfer was set up for me to go to a local rehab hospital to recondition my muscles into walking and body support for my spine. Unfortunately my lower back was being a constant issue so instead the radiologists wanted to see if the problem was again compression fractures, or if my muscles were just acting up because of the strain I had endured over the past couple weeks.
(cont in pt 4)
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