We made it to Denver around 10am. First stop was the distributor to pick up a couple cases of wine. Next we ran to Park Meadows to meet Toby so I could pick up a rifle I’m borrowing. Right at 11, we made it to the surgery center. Soon, we were checked in and getting Lori ready for surgery.
She said she wasn’t nervous but after 26 years, I could tell she was a little bit. This was a big big surgery. The surgeon, who Lori knows well, as she refers a lot of patients to him, came in and we went over the plan. He said it’d probably take a good 3 to 3 and a half hours, and if successful, Lori would be a case study! This means that surgeries like hers are difficult and not that common. We were both excited, but I told Lor, “not what ya want your surgeon to say before you’re going in, right?” Dr. Beckman looks really young, but he and Dr. Braxton were in the Air Force together and were both Chief of Staff in the military. Anyhow, Lori’s head was pounding so we were a go. I gave her a kiss on the top of her head, as they had scrubbed her neck and made her swirl swabs with iodine in her nose to prevent infection, and off she went.
I headed into Denver to hang out and pick up some cigars to kill some time. Then I drove out to our favorite specialty grocery store, Tony’s Market, to get some great food and kill some more time. After that, I headed back to the surgery center. I hung out in the truck for 45 minutes or so until I got a text saying they were closing, meaning sewing her shut, as then I knew she was coming out of surgery.
About 30 minutes later, Dr. Beckman called me and I said I’m out front, and he said, “ok, I’ll just come out”. He came and got me and we went back to recovery where Lori was awake but loopy. He told me, and these are his exact word, “dude, it was brutal but turned out really good”. He told us it would be rough, and she’d be sore as the CAT Scan showed bone on bone with no disc or space between C5 and C6. He said he was going to have to literally hammer out some bone to create a space for the new discs. Here’s an after picture showing the new discs in which are perfect and show a nice space and cushion between the vertebrae. Above the two new discs you can see her C2, C3 fusion from 2012. The two Oreo looking things where you’d see the cream are the discs.
Lori is actually taller now too! She just said this is way worse than she anticipated, ha. I knew it wasn’t going to be a cake walk. After talking to the doctor, I headed to a Walgreens 10 minutes away to try to get her four prescriptions. Luckily, I had picked up some wine as I had to give the head pharmacist a bottle, or I would have been there for hours. Even so, they called me from the surgery center wondering where I was. Thankfully I was just leaving to go back to get Lori. Dr. Beckman met me, and we made our way in through a backdoor as the front doors close at 5pm. It was now about 6pm we got Lori in the truck ready to go home. The ride was rough, as expected as the drugs were wearing off.
We made it home by 8:15 and I got her settled before unloading all the stuff in the truck. An hour later Jagger and Ava showed up. The rest of the night was spent with Lori being uncomfortable and neither of us sleeping that well. At 6am, I did notice she was finally asleep. By 7 she was up. She just had her morning medications. We’ll see how the rest of the day goes. We need to stay ahead of the pain.
Ty went to work at 6:30. I might go to the gym, haven’t decided yet. Hoping the day goes well for Lori. We’ll keep everyone posted, God Bless.