@lisalucier thank you for your message as well as the introductions. I need to preface anything I say with the fact that my bilateral surgery was only recently completed on 3/30-3/31/2026. My Laminectomy was performed on 5/19/2026 and I am still in the care of my surgeon. Sadly, my next scheduled follow-up visit isn't until 6/8/2026.

I am posting because I was not made aware of the possibility of the L2-L3 bulge issue prior to my first surgery, nor was I made aware of the possibility of drop foot and the tremendous muscle pain in my thighs causing weakness. While I may live a fairly sedentary lifestyle, losing some of my independence is a big problem for me.

I will admit that after doing some Googling, my drop foot is not very severe. It forces me to walk with a strange gait and I just automatically lift my right foot higher than necessary while walking or going up a stair. For me, the pain and weakness in my thighs combined with the drop foot, have taken the simplest tasks and turned them into painful and arduous chores and I want to best understand what happened and what I can do (starting yesterday!) to get back in control of my body. I am hopeful that my surgeon will send me for physical therapy as a way to strengthen my thigh muscles and also to hopefully alleviate the pain in them, but since I have no clue how or why this happened, I am really at a loss. Again, thank you for your response and I will take all of the help I can get. Mike