It's a Trial Run!

This is what the Spinal Cord Stimulator will look like once it is inside of me permanently. It wasn't like that for the trial run obviously because they weren't going to implant it until they knew if it worked. I really meant to take a picture of the temporary one so that I would remember just how big and bulky and inconvenient it really was. It was suppose to be this really simple procedure that I thought would take a total of 45 minutes at the U of U Orthopedic Center to put in my back. I was there 4 hours and it was more painful than I had hoped. I didn't realize that they would have to push as much on my lower back to get the wires in the small incisions and afterwards I was really sore for about two days. I then had these two long white telephone wires with phone jacks attached to a big bulky grey box that had to be attached at the waist. I could turn it off and on at any time I felt pain and it would send sensations down my legs to mask the pain and help blood circulate along with helping the muscles relax so that they wouldn't be tense and get inflamed, then causing the nerves that run down the middle of them to be pinched and cause my left leg and hip to burn like crazy. the worst part of it all was not being able to shower for the entire five days, having to go somewhere to get my hair washed and blowed dried because I wasn't suppose to reach and bend and pull the wires out. It really made me appreciate the ability I have to still do all of those tasks even though I still have the pain.
It really did work!!! I only had to take a few pain pills during the five day trial and never had anywhere near the amount of pain I normally have. I was actually quite skeptical going into this-thinking that maybe it wasn't really the right answer and I would just need to really concentrate on physical therapy to get the bones, muscles and nerves back into place and then keep them there. BUT happy for me-I truly believe that LIFE after SURGERY will be GOOD!!!!!
I have the actual implant set up for June 6th and am anxiously awaiting that date. I would have never in a million years thought that I would have a pacemaker inside of ME working to kill the pain! I just know that whatever it takes I'm willing to try to get this gone. 7 years is way too long to be in the amount of pain I have been in. I can be grateful though that I have something that is fixable and is only a mere $100,000 to do the job!!! Can you believe that? I can be even more grateful for insurance-they will make my life even more easy to deal with in a whole different way! The company that does this is called ANS and their rep here in the SLC valley is really knowledgeable and helpful. I am so ready to move on!!!!!