Best of luck James, I hope you have a safe surgery and healthy recovery!!

Good luck man. hope it goes as well as possible

I hope everything goes well and you have a speedy recovery!

updates? Is Genie around to keep us informed?

Hey guys. Surgery went well. He's still in the hospital. He's in a lot of pain, and pain killers really aren't helping. But overall went well. Hopefully he'll be home tomorrow, but not sure at this point.

Thanks for the update hun.

Tell the old man that we're hoping he feels better!

- Justin

Glad to hear it went well.

you might want to think about childproofing your home BEFORE you have kids... for the accident prone parents ;)

glad to hear it went well, hopefully the pain will go away soon

I wish you nothing but the best and a fast recovery.

Thanks everyone. He is home now. We came home last night. He's still in A LOT of pain, and the huge hard neck collar is really difficult to get comfortable in, but he's managing as best he can. I think he's going to go out and shovel soon! (jk)

Thanks again for everyone's thoughts. Will keep you updated as best I can. I'm sure he'll eventually be able to log in himself at some point and update everything.

Any updates? maybe i missed it if it was another post, but im sure a few of us are curious as to how james is doing.

Thanks everyone.

Update time.

Well, I have a new metal plate and 8 screws in my neck. When they were doing the surgery they found that the damage was worse than expected. When they removed the damaged disc's, they just fell apart.

They did not do the C3 to C4 fusion as of yet - it is a very high risk surgery so time will tell. That disc is still torn and herniated - maybe I'll be lucky and the body will heal it on its own. If I develop back/ neck problems then they will do that fusion through the back of my neck.

A couple weeks ago (as the pain in my neck/ upper back became less) the pain in my lower back became worse. I ended up collapsing a couple times due to pain. Went back to the doctor and got an x ray. As soon as I saw the x ray I was sick to my stomach - it was all curved and completely out of allignment. My doc got me into an mri immediately.

I have another bad herniated disc (L4 to L5). Also, for almost 2 years I have had back/ neck pain and my body has been compensating. I have been walking crooked/ bad posture etc because of the pain and damage so my spine is all messed up - it will take alot of difficult physical therapy to fix.

On friday morning I go in for injections into the spine - its a mixture of pain killers and steriods. The goal is to give the body some relief and let it heal on its own.

If it doesn't work then I'm going back in for surgery to have another spinal fusion. We should have that decision in the next couple weeks.

I am walking around with a damn cane and I have to use one of those extend o claws for things out of my reach. I feel like I am an 80 year old - especially with the cane/ claw.

I now have 2 fun scars on my neck - one bigger than the other.
I am finally out of the damn neck collars.
I am not in physical therapy yet - we gotta let my neck heal up some more.

I truly hate careless drivers - I have a lawyer.... I hope something comes out of it but money doesn't make loosing 2 years of my life worth it... and I'm still not even 100% (potentially 2 more surgeries).

Well, I am spending my days watching tv, icing my neck, playing ps3, putting heat on my neck, tons o pain killers n muscle relaxers.....and bored outta my mind.

Blah

In the same boat as ya man. Was told Monday I herniated my L4-5. Although mine is very mild, the doctor said that disc degeneration I have caused it to herniate. He said that with the right exercises and therapy, the degenerative disc will heal itself and the herniation will be a thing of the past.

Im just amazed that you had an MRI done with metal screws and plates in your neck???? Thats very dangerous. Otherwise, glad to hear from ya. Hope all goes well.

Wow, I thought it sounded a lot more positive before :(

On a side note, if you ever feel like you would like to do some homework to pass the time, most of Seton Hall's stuff is on the computer :lol:

Sorry to hear about your back problems - I can really sympathise.

As for the mri....I think they must switch to a different setting for people with metal in them. But it was really funny because during the last mri I noticed that at times my wedding ring was vibrating/ slight pull but I felt nothing in my neck/back/ knees (got metal in the knees too).

Is your last name Murphy?

http://img.wonkette.com/wp-content/u...02/robocop.jpg