{"id":133001,"date":"2023-03-27T05:51:03","date_gmt":"2023-03-27T11:51:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=133001"},"modified":"2023-03-27T11:50:22","modified_gmt":"2023-03-27T17:50:22","slug":"an-anniversary-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2023\/03\/27\/an-anniversary-2\/","title":{"rendered":"An Anniversary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday was the 6-month anniversary of my third and latest back surgery &#8211; a 4 level spinal fusion. Readers know that occasionally I use Feathered Photography as a means of keeping family and friends up to date on significant developments in my life and this surgery was nothing if it wasn&#8217;t significant. Thus today&#8217;s post.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"121712\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2022\/10\/13\/now-i-better-understand-why-spinal-fusion-recovery-is-so-painful\/20221012_083350-horizontal\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/20221012_083350-horizontal.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"900,750\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;SM-G950U&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1665563630&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"20221012_083350 horizontal\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/20221012_083350-horizontal.jpg\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-121712 size-full\" title=\"4-level spinal fusion x-ray\" src=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/20221012_083350-horizontal.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"900\" height=\"750\" srcset=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/20221012_083350-horizontal.jpg 900w, https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/20221012_083350-horizontal-300x250.jpg 300w, https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/20221012_083350-horizontal-768x640.jpg 768w, https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/20221012_083350-horizontal-150x125.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>My surgeon told me that &#8220;full recovery&#8221; (whatever that is) would take at least six months and some of his patients report continued, slow improvement for up to a year after surgery. At 6 months, this is where I stand &#8211; reported as &#8220;Discouraging Signs&#8221;, &#8220;Encouraging Signs&#8221; and &#8220;Future Challenges&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Discouraging Signs:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Too much standing or walking continues to cause nerve pain and discomfort in my legs, hips and back, but not nearly as much, or as often, as I had pre-surgery. Yesterday I spent too much time walking around Lowe&#8217;s and I&#8217;m paying for it today.<\/li>\n<li>Those rods and screws in my back have stiffened me up significantly but that was expected. My surgeon told me that people &#8220;get used to&#8221; the loss of flexibility. I&#8217;m not there yet and I may never be.<\/li>\n<li>I continue to have good days and bad days, though the number of good days has increased significantly.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Encouraging Signs:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I can now walk up and down the stairs in my home repeatedly without causing leg symptoms &#8211; a major, positive development.<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;m no longer restricted by how much weight I can lift. My surgeon told me to just &#8220;use common sense&#8221;. If it hurts, don&#8217;t do it.<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;m beginning (tentatively) to do home maintenance chores again without paying for it for days. A few days ago I crawled under my kitchen sink to tighten up the loose faucet. Pre-surgery, and for months post-surgery, that&#8217;s something I had zero chance of accomplishing. It wasn&#8217;t fun but I got it done.<\/li>\n<li>I can now drive for long distances without pissing off my back &#8211; a huge development considering that many of my favorite birding locations require long drives to get there.<\/li>\n<li>I can now pick things up off the floor when I drop them. You can&#8217;t imagine what a game-changer that&#8217;s been.<\/li>\n<li>Most nights I can sleep without pain or even discomfort &#8211; hallelujah!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Future Challenges:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Yard\/garden work, if it ever stops snowing, will be a major test. I know I&#8217;ll have to alter many of my usual work patterns but I&#8217;m hopeful that I can at least accomplish the basics. And I consider garden tomatoes a &#8220;basic&#8221;.<\/li>\n<li>My camping trailer. For the last couple of weeks I&#8217;ve been slowly and very tentatively working on some trailer maintenance and minor upgrades. Time will tell if I can get it road-worthy and do all the other physically demanding chores required to go on extended camping\/photography trips this spring and summer. How that turns out will determine whether I keep the trailer or sell it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"133005\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2023\/03\/27\/an-anniversary-2\/grabber\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/grabber.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"900,424\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;1.8&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;SM-S901U&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1679911008&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;5.4&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;1000&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.0083333333333333&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"grabber\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/grabber.jpg\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-133005 size-full\" title=\"grabber ron dudley\" src=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/grabber.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"900\" height=\"424\" srcset=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/grabber.jpg 900w, https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/grabber-300x141.jpg 300w, https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/grabber-768x362.jpg 768w, https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/grabber-150x71.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Putting my socks on without using my handy-dandy &#8220;grabber&#8221;. For some illogical reason that seemingly minor challenge has become symbolic in my mind of the surgery&#8217;s ultimate success or failure. I&#8217;d love to throw that damn thing away. Or at least relegate it to storage for emergency use only.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>My last challenge is to make today&#8217;s blog post the last one, ever, that contains the words &#8220;surgery&#8221; and\/or &#8220;back fusion&#8221;. That would be a relief for me, my family and friends and my blog followers.<\/p>\n<p>Ron<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday was the 6-month anniversary of my third and latest back surgery. It&#8217;s time for an update &#8211; hopefully the last one. (2 photos)<\/p>\n<p> <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2023\/03\/27\/an-anniversary-2\/\"><span>Continue reading<\/span><i class=\"crycon-right-dir\"><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[334],"tags":[6824,4892,6826,6828,6827],"class_list":["post-133001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","tag-4-level-fusion","tag-back-surgery","tag-hardware","tag-how-long-does-back-fusion-surgery-recovery-take","tag-x-ray"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/20221012_083350-horizontal.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-yBb","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133001"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133053,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133001\/revisions\/133053"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}