@timothytulloch Timothy,

I hope I can help ease the fear a bit. I am a cervical spine fusion patient, and I felt awful on pain medication after surgery. It nauseated me, so I tried going without and I did just fine. I accepted that pain would make me tired and I just slept a lot. That was cervical surgery. The pain was not awful, it was just uncomfortable. I just relaxed. The more fearful and stressed you are about pain, the greater the pain and you will feel higher pain levels. If you can come to some kind of acceptance and thinking that you made this choice for the benefits of the procedure, it helps. Think of pain after surgery as healing pain.

Lumbar surgery is different in that most of your body weight is supported there. The weight is 80% on the vertebral bodies and spinal discs, and 20% on the facet joints. A laminectomy would not alter those places. My 80 year old cousin had a laminectomy for stenosis, and took pains medications for a week, and then weaned off them. He was walking right away and feeling better at 2 weeks, and by 6 weeks, had no pain at all and was back to normal. Of course there will be some scar tissue that may get tight, but this surgery gave him back quality of life and he is active and traveling with his wife. A laminectomy is not as invasive as spinal fusion. Sometimes it is done along with a spinal fusion.

You do need a surgeon who you can trust completely who you believe has the right skill level and success rate statistics to handle the problem that you have. You can ask for that information and for how many of this procedure they have done. You can ask what causes complications for this surgery, and if your bone quality is good enough for what is being offered to you. You can also ask about the anesthesia for your concerns. You can ask what helps prevent infections. For example, for my surgery, I was asked to use a pea sized glob of antibiotic ointment inside my nose twice daily the week before surgery to try to prevent staff infections. After surgery, you have to walk and breathe to get the phlegm cleared out or that can become a chest infection. That did happen to me, but it was facilitated by a physical problem I have with breathing and chest tightness that was preventing my lungs from moving enough. Many surgeons give you a packet of antiseptic soap to shower with the day of surgery. (Mine did.)

Also realize that everyone has a different spine problem and a different proposed treatment for the issues. Some are simple and some are complex. A laminectomy and my single level cervical fusion are fairly simple as compared to a big spine surgery for something like scoliosis with a lot of hardware instrumentation and months of recovery. Learn as much as you can about the procedure that is recommended. That can ease your mind a lot and it takes away the fear of the unknown.

Jennifer

@timothytulloch - It's great you're as open about your feelings as you are. Yes, this type of surgery can cause fear to dominate your thinking.

I would personally spend zero seconds thinking about somehow "waking up during surgery". I just Googled and saw that 1 in a 1,000 surgical procedures have that happen. 0.1%. If the weather report predicted a 0.1% chance of rain...would you cancel your outside plans?

I assume you're having your surgery at a great facility with a great doctor?

I don't tolerate opiods very well and went on Tylenol-only within 48 hours or so post surgery. I managed. Probably you can, too. But that should be a game-time decision. A good facility has many tools and techniques to help you manage any post surgical pain. They are not going to let you lie there in agony or be discharged without a solid pain management strategy in place.

Think positive thoughts. Seriously. Picturing positive outcomes can actually be an imprtant part of your recovery process.

Wishing you the best!