jbailey | Three month medical update

We just came back from my three-month visit with the surgeon. Everything is pretty much going well: The x-rays looks good - the hardware hasn't shifted, screws haven't come loose (They need a CT scan to tell how well the bone fusion is happening. Too much hardware in the way in the meantime). The biggest concern he has is that because I spent 2 weeks throwing up and lost something like 15kg, most of my movement restrictions haven't changed, nor has the diet emphasis. So still no lifting, twisting or bending. I can, however, now reach out with both hands. So I can help chop veggies for dinner and such.

I also got some clarification on the photo.
(Warning, 1.7megs. (c) 2008 Dr. P Mummaneni, All Rights Reserved, posted with permission. Lots of blood and meat, you've been warned!)

It's the same one as before, but now I've actually gotten a chance to ask questions about it. I was pleased to know that most of my guesses had been right. =) I'll try to answer the questions people had:

I'm face down in the picture, my head is to the left. The yellow around the incision really is my skin, covered with iodine and such to minimize infection. The black bits are cauterised to minimize blood loss and such. The thick white cord down the middle is the spinal cord itself. The white covering is the dura.

To do this operation, they take away the bone on top, then take out the surrounding tissue, then take out the bone on the bottom. As someone guessed in the comments, the spinal cord sits in front of the titanium cage.

The medal bits on the bottom of the picture are the places where the second rod got bolted in.

Neat the leftmost metal thing, you can see a nerve coming out of the cord. In the middle of the picture there isn't any, which is why I have some sensation loss through my armpits and such.

Dr. Mummaneni said that he'll try to put the rest of the pictures onto a CD for me, so I'll probably get them at my next appointment in 3 months. In the meantime, I'm cleared to fly, and I'm cleared to return to work at the beginning of next month. Yay!

Oh, and it turns out that I might set off modern metal detectors. So I now have a doctor's note to travel with. I'll find out later this week. =)

In other news, Leif is doing much better. So far it looks like the inhaler was needed just to him over this cold. I'll post more on that another time. This post is getting long.