For those that will face this down the road, I thought Id give ya a little play by play on whats going on. Three weeks ago, had two level lumbar fusion L5/S1 and L4/L5 performed with the TLIF procedure. With this procedure I have two scars, one on each side of the spine and they are a couple inches long. With my previous spinal surgery, my scar is dead center, so it looks like I have tally marks, lol. Anyway, pain was originally in my right leg and foot, requiring either crutches or a large amount of Gabapentin (nerve pain control) in order to walk. Happy to report, my right leg feels amazing. It hasn’t felt this strong in about ten years. Absolutely no pain at all on the right side, anywhere. I do have some post surgical pain in my left leg though. My neurosurgeon told me at the hospital that I would probably have some left leg discomfort including numbness and tingling. And he wasn't wrong. I have the *****lies in my left foot and calf and some pain in my upper leg. He said its due to the swelling and would go away. I sense that he is right, because it goes away after icing and comes back after activity. When my left leg is affected I can feel the swelling in my back.

I took the heavy duty pain meds for about ten days and now im only taking the Gabapentin and Celebrex (anti-inflammatory). Will save the rest of my pain meds for those pesky kidney stones. My back still hurts quite a bit at the surgery site, due to the bone drilling and muscle cutting. But it gets a little better each day. Hardest thing is to get up and down from the Chair or the shixter. Well getting in and out of the car still sucks. I think another week and it will get significantly better. I can definitely tell im stronger than I was the week of the surgery so I am healing.

I go for my one month checkup next week and he is going to schedule the Physical Therapy to start. Right now im walking about 1-1.5 miles a day, wearing this super sexy and way over priced back brace. Things got a pulley system in it to really cinch things down and keep me straight. Im hoping he gives me clearance to start driving after next week and then I can at least get into work for a few hours and catch up on paperwork and stuff.

Early prognosis, if things keep improving as they are, This was definitely the right decision for me. The spinal instability was so bad, I didnt really have a choice. Now I have a titanium back, lol. Hopefully it gives me my life back, so far so good