In my earlier post, I had written about how I was diagnosed with the disc prolapse that led to the following explained changes in my life. The purpose of this blog post is to help many like me who suffer from Chronic Back Problems. The reason of my writing is also to seek support from the people who are in my situation and have already undergone surgery. I would love to hear your part of the story as here is mine .
I was diagnosed with a massive disc prolapse in December 2015. The reason, as they say, may be any but my overzealous work habits are one of the major cause of my condition according to what I accept now. Maybe I knew about this earlier but it took me 5 years to accept it was. I worked in the conditions which were not amicable and still did not do anything to bring a change. I rather adjusted myself and kept on performing dentistry procedures on small kids without taking proper precautions for the chair adjustments and relied mainly on bending my back for the purpose. The grave mistake was that I kept pushing myself when my body had already started showing signs of distress. Its not like I reached the condition requiring surgery all of a sudden. It happened gradually and I accept it was partially my mistake when I know it was fore written in my fate.
In the beginning, when I used to get back ache I would still push myself for an extra mile of walk. I wanted to feel strong but my body could not fight with my arguing and stubborn mind and it finally lost. I would carry heavy bags myself and heavy meant really very heavy in those days when we were shifting our things from one city to another. Instead of hiring a person to do it for us, I volunteered to shift and arrange heavy furniture at home. I am hypothyroid and was on a lot of supplements for my muscle aches and deficiencies related to Vitamin D and I ignored it all. My mind told me that I was strong and at that time my own mind went against me.
After this whole shifting had taken place, we joined the new hospital where I faced some auxiliary staff shortage. And now you must think that poor me, maybe that was the reason of my misery! Let me tell you straight away that it wasn’t. This is a fact that the auxiliary staffs which are backbone of dentistry were less in the department but no one forced me to work if I dint want to in such conditions. My ambitious nature told me to push myself and work with wrong back positions. Anyways, within one week of joining, I started having severe back ache. We went for an MRI, when my doctor told me to take a break of two weeks and rest as I had a tear in my disc.
As you can expect till now, my answer was “NO” and I took heavy doses of pain killers and muscle relaxants instead and still kept pushing. We had joined in June and by late December, rather on the New year’s eve, I got the biggest shock of my life, the diagnosis of ” DISC PROLAPSE”. I remember the day as it was yesterday. After the MRI, we consulted the neurosurgeon who straight away told me to get a surgery done. It was easy for him to say and literally impossible for me to digest. It took time to reach the neurons of my brain as to what had actually happened. I had indeed done some mistakes and carelessness to my health but did I deserve this?
By this time, my gait had changed and right side of my hip was more on the right side than the middle spine. I was in severe pain and one night before this MRI, I had to stand for 4 hours straight because I could not lie down in lieu of the excruciating pain. My back felt like it was a hinge joint that was not greased enough and if I laid down would have broken into two. I was bent and my gait was changed. I looked at myself in the mirror and could feel that the mental pain of seeing what I saw “of my posture” and it was much worse than the actual physical pain.
My husband, being very supportive, immediately told me to get the surgery done and that he was going to support me through it. It is a blessing to have a support in such chronic illnesses but in my case, everyone who mattered was not that supportive. I could not get this surgery done without the support of my parents and in laws. They were scared about the consequences the surgery could bring. Spinal surgery is a stigma in countries like India, that too on a girl of 27 years who still had to bear children and people cared more about that than anything else in India.
So, I had to drop the idea of getting the surgery done and I took a leave of one month to rest and try the conservative treatment. My mother came to take care of me and the whole month went more or less asymptomatic. The major reason for that, as we found later, was the rest that I was taking. I was on heavy meds which made me sleep most of the day and I seldom walk. I would just go to the washroom and back to my bed. So, after a month, the irritating feeling of tightness and something getting pulled behind my knee and the whole back of my leg had almost disappeared and my mom went back home.
Stars had decided otherwise and the pain and the annoying pull in the back of my leg was back before I could actually start to feel normal at all. As soon as I resumed my daily chores at home, the pain was back. It increased over the next few days. It got exasperated and I would cry without knowing that I was. My husband could not watch me in the same condition for long and so he told me that I was getting that damn surgery done. I would not agree as everyone in our families was against the same. I was scared but he persuaded me to get rid of the vexatious pull behind the leg. The back pain was one problem that I could handle but this annoying feeling of the pull that they call the Sciatica pain in medical terms was killing my mind. I was so maddened by the feeling that I got scared every time I had to take another step. The Sciatica pain would come and go like a ghost. So, I dint know whether the next step that I take would be accompanied by it or not. This whole dilemma made me ill mentally and I wanted to get over with this.
Finally, I agreed to my husband’s pleas and we decided to book our tickets for India and get the damn surgery done. I have had a surgery before for a peri-anal abscess which was drained under GA and was a complicated procedure as 300 ml of pus was drained when I had already started showing signs of sepsis. That surgery was followed by a one month period of pain, distress, a lot of doctor visits and cleaning and bandaging at home plus plenty of meds. So, this is how I prepared my mind that again this time after the surgery, one or two months I will be in trouble but the problem will be solved forever. I don’t even remember sometimes that I had that abscess now a days because the surgery takes the problem away!
So, we came to India, visited a few doctors and took their opinion. Each one of them told us that I would be back on my legs the other day of surgery and back to work in 7-10 days. They said it was a minor operation and nothing to worry about. What followed next was horrendous………..
dpkaansh 