Once they knocked me out they moved me onto a special table used for spine surgery.
The first procedure was a laminectomy, during which they essentially remove the outer rearmost layer of the spinal column, exposing the spinal canal and spinal cord.
Then they did both a foraminotomy, widening the holes the nerve roots pass through to help decompress the nerve, and also removed ganglion (scar tissue, extra unwanted growth) from around the spinal cord also relieving compression.the ganglion may have been caused by my fall years ago.
Then artificial coral is mixed with the cleaned and ground lamina which had been removed, and turned into a paste which acts like a bone graft, and becomes part of the fusion.
The rest of the fusion/stabilization process is a little more high tech than coral. Stainless steel screws are placed into both sides of each vertebrae involved, and the a rod on each side connects the head of the screws together. In my case, 4 vertebrae were fused together
After getting all closed up with sutures and 27 staples, this is what it looked like:
It all improves from here on.
Posted with Blogsy
1 comment:
Ken Oh my gosh ,, you are so brave. hope it works & all is good. did you see these pic. before you had surgery?
Post a Comment