Wendy Coneybeer

I’m in pain. Not only today, but more often than not. If you don’t know me very, very well, however, you’re not likely to be able to tell during a normal social interaction.

Many of you who read this blog have known me for less than a year, and don’t know a lot of details about me prior to our meeting other than I used to live in Ohio and, a much longer time ago, I used to drive a truck (Yes a BIG truck, but that’s good stuff for another post sometime). There’s so much more, and this blog will be a great place to tell you all about it, because I hate repeating myself 100 times and I’ve met a lot of people this year! Also, some of you are old, dear friends that I’ve thankfully reconnected with recently on Facebook, and we have 10+ years of stuff to catch up on. Plus, I have a lot of family across the world who only get to see brief glimpses in to my life on Facebook or over the phone and I feel like I owe them all so much more. I never thought my life was that interesting, but I guess I do have a lot to tell you about

This is one of those things that I’d rather just write down once and, when it comes up in conversation, I’ll just whip out a card with my blog URL and kindly tell people, “You can read the whole story here.”

I’ve had back problems for a very long time. No major injuries to note, but there were a lot of little things that have aggravated it over the years, especially in my lower back. I’ve had pain in my back since probably sometime in my teens, as far as I can remember. Not-so-coincidentally, my dad, some of his brothers, and his mother also have spine issues. Something genetic could definitely be at work here.

The pain had become increasingly more debilitating over the years, with less action necessary to make it flare up on me. There were more and more instances of not being able to go from a sitting to a standing position without a lot of discomfort. Little things like hitting a pothole with the car, doing a few loads of laundry in a day, or being startled by someone which cause my body to tense up involuntarily would put me in pain for a week, sometimes more.  One day in December of ’06 I was just sitting at my desk at work and knew something had just gone really badly wrong with my back. After that, the only comfortable position for me was lying down, keeping my body as flat and straight as possible. Moving to a sitting position was very difficult, and when I did sit my legs would go numb to the point that I couldn’t feel my feet. Driving and sitting at a desk were out of the question. I could sort of get comfortable on the couch or bed. Drugs like Vicodin didn’t do much except keep me loopy. The family doctor tried me on various steroids and painkillers, and it got to the point that I was getting so many painkillers that the pharmacy started getting suspicious that I was just a junkie. Or they might have thought Chris was a junkie using my name for getting drugs. I remember one day they interrogated him before letting him pick up my new prescription.

The family doctor finally referred me to a neurology group who set me up with one of their surgeons. My neurosurgeon took one look at my MRI and didn’t even question the idea of surgery. My disc between my L5-S1 vertebrae had completely collapsed so there was no padding there and I had nerves that were being badly pinched as a result. Lots of muscle spasms too, from other parts of my body overcomensating for the problem area. My spinal fusion was set for late January ’07.

I had stopped working, filed FMLA paperwork, and had my doctor sign papers to get me on short-term disability. This was after I put through a proposal to my employer to let me telecommute since I had VPN access already and all I did was sit at a desk all day to work. They denied the request. I’m not completely disappointed they did, but at the time it was upsetting to me because now I had to just sit at home on disability and find things to occupy my time. The internet and our Xbox 360 became my best friends for the better part of the next year. Chris was wonderful too, but he still had to do plenty of work to support us, because now I was down to just a fraction of my paycheck and I couldn’t do any of the household work either. He was a busy guy. I probably wasn’t all that pleasant to be around anyway. When I’m in pain I tend to get a little cranky. Maybe more than a little.

Chris took me in for my surgery very early on a cold January morning. I had it done at Mt. Carmel surgical hospital which was completely on the opposite side of Columbus from our home, but totally worth it in every way. This place was bordering more on being like a hotel than a hospital. Room service for the patients and their visitors, and Chris was even able to stay overnight with me there on a chair in private room that folded out into a bed. But alas, we were definitley not there on vacation.

The surgery was supposed to take 4 or 5 hours if I remember correctly. They were going in through the muscle in my lower back on each side of the spine to clean out the old disc matter, insert an artificial disc, and then hold everything together with two titanium rods and four screws. They surgeon did all of this, but apparently mistook those love handles as being flab instead of the abundance of muscle they are (LOL… yeah, I really didn’t realize either!) and it took him a lot longer to get through it all than he had anticipated. Also, I had a little anesthesia issue that caused me to quit breathing a few times and forced them to intubate me so I could, you know, get the oxygen I needed to not die. So it ended up being a nine hour surgery and, from what I’ve heard, my poor husband was having a melt down and personal crisis during the last half of it because he didn’t know what was taking so long.

The next few weeks were a drug-induced blur for me. I remeber little bits and pieces from the hospital, like the relief on Chris’ face when I finally came out of recovery, walking for the first time, and learning to do stairs since I had 18 to scale to make it home. I used a walker if I had to do anything on my feet, like go to the bathroom, for the next two weeks. I had a girdle-like back brace (which Chris very lovingly referred to as my chastity belt) that I had to wear anytime I wasn’t in bed for the next several months, until the vertebrae had sufficiently grown around the hardware to help keep everything where it was to eventually heal together. Little things I had taken for granted like showering, getting dressed, and generally making myself presentable to leave the house (once I was able, about six weeks after surgery) were extremely difficult to accomplish.

I slowly regained my strength and range of motion through physical therapy and healing over the next several months. I tried going back to work, landing a job on my birthday in September of that year, but it only lasted four days because I was having violent muscle spasms from the sharp increase in activity and trying to get my body used to sitting at a desk again. A couple of months after that, I tried again and succeeded for about six months until the upper vertebrea started giving me a lot of pain. The doctor approved a disability leave, but the disability company denied the claim because I had changed employers (thought not by my choice) and, though this still fell under the umbrella of a Degenerative Disc Disease diagnosis, it was apparently “unrelated” to my other condition.

So I was miserable, Chris probably was too, and money was tight. I was going to physical therapy one day, in so much pain that I was in tears when I got to the office, and they used a TENS unit on me along with a moist heating pad and some light massage. The relief that the TENS unit provided was unparalelled by any drug I had taken up to that point. With a prescription form my neurosurgeon my insurance paid for a $900 TENS unit that literally changed my life. I was able to go back to work a short time after that, and with nightly use of the TENS I was able to stand the daily activity required to hold a full-time job and gain some assemblance of a “normal” life back.

So, I still have some pain issues, but nothing that I find totally debillitating, but still pretty uncomfortable if I do “too much”. I don’t have much trouble anymore recognizing what my limitations are; I know the vast majority of the time when I am doing something that is going to cause me a lot of discomfort the next day or longer. My stubborness and my desire to not look weak drive me to do such things. I know a lot of people who are in pain and go through everyday life just fine, and you would never know it. That is who I wanted to be. I hate having to use my pain as an excuse, no matter how valid that excuse may be, to not do something. Which is why when asked yesterday if I’d be okay helping move some hardware I said “Yes!” and I meant it, even though I was already sore from a sudden incoming low-pressure weather system this week, and I knew I’d hurt more today. I knew that I’d probably not do any real damage by performing the  requested activities, and will probably benefit from the muscle-building exercise involved. And It also gives me an excuse to go out and visit my hot tub later this evening

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