About Me (In My Own Words)
On 06/15/2017, I was walking out of an office in a business room and tripped on a step. Because the ground was uneven, I caught my toe and when I tripped.
The flooring in the building was raised which made me jar my back sending a shock was up my back. The surgeons I received opinions for my herniated L5 with disc protrusions at L4, L5 refused to do surgery on my back bc they did not think I was surgical.
After almost 9 months of left and right epidural injections, massage therapy, and physical therapy when the surgeons told me there was nothing else they could do bc my back was not surgical, I got upset with that bc I am only 35 years old, a single mom, and am in excruciating pain.
I had asked the surgeons in August 2016 about non-invasive laser spine surgery and was told that was a marketing gimmick.
I was not okay with their opinions due to my excruciating pain and decided to travel to Scottsdale, AZ and have laser spine surgery at North American Spine. And OMG is worked, Dr. Burgher was able to remove a disc fragment from the herniation that was press central on my spinal canal and shrunk the protrusions at L3, L4.
Finally my right leg that was numb wasn't numb anymore instantly. The disc fragment weighed .133 of a gram pinching my spinal cord. I did slightly re-injury my surgery and have had to have 2 left epidural injections and 2 right epidural injections. But I started walking doing massage and physically therapy I was 80% better.
I am still working on recovering from the Non-Invasive Lumbar Laser Spine Surgery that I had on 02/16/2017 and am in quite a bit of pain still but nothing like the herniation.
On 05/15/2017, after talking a one hour light walk in the morning I walked into my house, stretched, cooled down and stood up slowly when I felt a surge of blood rush to my head starting seeing stars (seizure aura) and pass out, hit my head on my entertainment center, blacked out for like one minute, woke up like I was having a bad dream and then gasped for air.
When I opened, my eyes with my teeth chattering biting the side of my tongue, it took about one and a half minutes for me to even figure out I was in my own house. Scariest feeling I have ever had. Ran to the freezer for Ice, starting feeling nauseated rolling of the couch onto the floor.
The ice was hurting my head so bad that I pulled the ice off my head and the entire towel was soaked with blood. I had to make a decision to either call 911 bc I was by myself or run to my neighbors house. After receiving a huge shot of adrenaline, I ran to my neighbors house and feel down to the floor.
My neighbor took me to the emergency room. While at the ER, I had a CT scan and X-ray test done. I saw no doctor in the ER but they told me that I stood up to fast and had a loss of blood pressure, no brain hemorrhaging, no broken bones in my neck.
So two nurses place 12 staples in my head without giving me anything to lower the pain level while they used a staple gun and popped 12 staples into my head.
Currently, I am still suffering from a post-concussion that I believe is about 30% better but have troubles with short term memory, about a minute lag in how I normally process information and about a 30 minute lag in organizational skills.
I should be brain resting right now but my heart surgeon said he doesn't want me to worry about that right now bc my mitral valves have severe regurgitation, left atrium is very dilated and my right ventricle is swelling causing prolapse in my pulmonary valves and trace regurgitation in my tricuspid valves.
So since my heart is failing, I have to have heart valve surgery and am currently in preoperative testing and based on reviewing my calendar once that is complete I will have a hard surgery date. I think it will be around the first of October.
More Info About Me & My Heart
More About Me
-
I am from:
Boise, Idaho
-
My surgery date is:
October 1, 2017
-
I was diagnosed with:
Mitral Regurgitation
Tricuspid Regurgitation
Atrial Fibrillation
-
My surgery was:
Mitral Valve Replacement
Mitral Valve Repair
-
My surgeon is:
Dr. Stephen Jones
-
My hospital is:
Saint Alphonous in Boise, ID
