On September 24th I was taken to emergency at the DECH in
Fredericton with acute back spasms. After a week of diagnoses and painkillers,
I was taken to the neurological unit at Saint John Regional Hospital. On
October 4th they operated on my back, removing an epidural abscess caused by
streptococcal infection. After some healing and then physio in Saint John, I
was brought back to the DECH for a few days, getting home on October 20th. Since I've been on a antibiotic pump that gives me a megadose of penicillin every four hours, with extramural nurses coming to our apartment to refill it every
morning. As of last night, I'm finally free of that!
The infection really ramped up my MS symptoms, to the point
where I was not even able to transfer myself from one chair to another. Since
the surgery I've gained some of my strength and balance back, but I still have
to use a walker to get around, which means I’m still much worse than I was
before I was infected. In particular, it really feels like the vertebrae in my
lumbar region [where the surgery was] are rubbing against my spinal cord
causing much more spasticity in my walking. I've been wearing a back brace when
I'm sitting up in a chair or walking around for any distance, but I don't know
that it's really helped reduce the spasticity, especially now that my back is
somewhat stronger. I'm hoping that, when my healing is finally done, I'll be
back to being able to do what was normal for me before the infection.
On the bright side, I can always hope that the surgery has
reduced the stenosis in my spine. Certainly my hip and sciatic pain (and some
other symptoms) are way less than before my surgery. I don't know if that is due
to surgery or just the fact that I'm not moving around much these days. Guess
I'll have to wait and see.
Between the infection and painkillers, I was in a fog for
most the time that I was in the hospitals. I hardly even remember my daughter’s
first visit (before surgery). I'm sure glad that I got home before my son left
for his teaching job in China, and that my daughter had a second opportunity to
visit us at home.
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