I had a bad night last night... I saw my first Consultant for many years last January, after suffering with chronic debilitating back pain from June 2013, and he informed me that I would need surgery to correct two quite severe curvatures that have obviously degenerated over the last few years. Since then I have begun to suffer with panic attacks, especially at night. My husband is asleep beside and my mind starts really wandering.
This is a picture from the MRI scan I had in January 2014 of my lubar section. It shows a 70 degree curvature with arthritis and my curve up top is 60 degrees.
I'm due to have two titanium rods inserted either side of my spine from the top to the bottom and then a bridge across to attach the rods to my pelvis as my lower spine has degenerated so much that it would not hold the rods for long. I am scared stiff.. The two surgeons are amazing, they work as a team and have done so many of these operations together that they know what they are doing. However, they have not operated on me or my back. As with all operations there is a risk, a risk of death, a risk of paralysis, a risk of infection, a risk that this might not work and I'll need further surgery, a risk that the constant immense pain that I'm in now will get worse! oh please!! and how am I going to be after the op. I read on another blog that having the rods is like waking up with a table strapped to your back. I am, and have been, a very active person. I have danced, jived in competitions, been a Zumba instructor, had three amazing children, run around after them and schools and family since forever, and I work. How can I go from being active, to being nothing. How am I going to be after the op, what is the pain going to be like, how will I walk, put socks on...for gods sake, how the hell am I going to wipe my bum...you try it with a totally rigged back!! not easy!
While all this is going round and round in my head in the dead of night, I can feel the panic start. It starts as a knot in my stomach and tight, heavy knot and I can feel it, it hurts. The knot grows so that eventually I get a pain in my chest and I can feel and hear my heart beating and getting faster. The knot is still there too. It then spreads to my throat which gets tighter and hurts which then radiates through to my ears which are throbbing from the noise from my heart, then it hits my eyes and the tears start. They appear from the corner of my shut eyes and roll down my face to my ears and they are hot. Hot sticky tears. The only way to alleviate all this pain is to roll up into a tight ball and bury my head, and eventually after lots of quiet sobbing, I fall asleep.
I think last nights attack was simply bought on by the fact that yesterday I was made an Admin Assistant on a Scoliosis facebook page. Not that that really makes any difference to me at all. I think it was just that the lady that created the page felt that it was getting too big for her alone to be answering the questions and queries fellow sufferers were asking. Maybe I read too many negative posts. Everybody is in pain, everybody who has the rods has developed other ailments and pains, not one had a positive thing to say about the ops.
I spoke to my husband this morning and told him about the panic attack, he always gets cross that I don't wake him up, but he does so much for me at the moment, how can I wake him up and say 'babe, I'm scared again!' No, best to just get on with it. Anyway I decided today I would add a post to the facebook page to see how many people over 40 there are on there, as most seem to be alot younger than me, and then how many positive comments we can get.
Anyway I'm absolutely shattered today, due to lack of sleep but I'll let you know how my posts go tomorrow.
xx
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