11 weeks post-op - very positive vibes

Well, we are all feeling a lot more positive this week! Nick has managed full days at school and he has been back on court a few times. He also says that he feels like he is improving, which is fantastic.

11 weeks post op summary

• School. Managing full days at school, although he does feel sore by the end of the day and needs to lie down when he gets home.
• Tennis. Doing gentle hitting for about 20 minutes once every two/three days. Feels general muscle ache afterwards but nothing worse. Coach commented today that Nick is moving much better post microdiscectomy compared to post nerve decompression.
• Physio exercises. No change on the 9 weeks programme except we have added bridging back in. His pelvic tilts are definitely improving.
• Sports massage. Had another this week and although tougher this time it still seemed to help, though not as much as the previous occasion.
• Muscles. Muscles not feeling tight.
• Sciatic pain. Not getting any :-)
• Sitting. Not brilliant, but managing lessons at school.
• Posture. Improving, especially when he's not thinking about it. Interesting psychological point there.
• Straight leg raise. Same - 60 degrees one side, 90 degrees other.
• Emotions. Much, much better. Seems more like his former self - positive, motivated, cheerful and generally much better.

So, you can see why I started with 'feeling a lot more positive'. I am now starting to look forward to improvements, rather than worrying about any lack of improvements.

Posted with Blogsy

10 weeks post-op: ups & downs

10 weeks post op and I have to admit that I'm not entirely sure where Nick is at. This week has had it's ups and downs, some improvements and some setbacks....

• Last week he managed three half days at school and then the half term break started. On the positive side, it felt like he was managing greater chunks of time at school, and by the end of the week he managed a double lesson without having to get up in the middle. On the other hand, he still needs to lie down at break, lunch and free periods and he didn't manage a full day.
• He had a school trip to the theatre one evening for his GCSE controlled assessment - 2 hours and 20 minutes including the interval. When he got home he seemed OK - certainly a lot better than I was expecting and he didn't want a painkiller. But the next morning he was absolutely exhausted and didn't make it into school until lunchtime. But at least he made it.
• Sitting - still a problem, but he hasn't done much in the last few days as he is taking the half-term break as an opportunity to rest as much as possible
• Posture - generally good except when in pain
• Straight leg raise, about 60 degrees on one side, 90 degrees on the other
• Exercise - not doing much. Doing his physio exercises (same as last week) but focusing on his pelvic tilts. He thinks that they are getting easier, but he's not sure. I'm doing a lot of hamstring stretches with him.
• Tennis. His physio said that he could try some gentle hitting, max 15 mins every 2 to 3 days. He hit against the wall in our garden yesterday and said that it felt OK. He was a little stiff in unexpected places afterwards, but the stiffness seems to have gone today so I suspect just a case of waking up some muscles.
• Sciatic pain - not routinely mentioning any. A little reoccurrence when stretching his hamstrings out fully.
• Buttock pain - seems to gone completely, at last.
• Bending forwards. No change and he is getting increasingly frustrated by this. I noticed that when he bends over with his knees bent then he is quite lopsided. When I took the photo below he swore to me that he was even, and didn't believe otherwise until I showed him the photo.

 

• Sports massage. Is loving them. And coped much better with school the day afterwards. Next one tomorrow.

Emotionally. Tricky this one! He sort of lost the plot a little over the last few days and ended up doing pretty much not much at all other than lying on the floor. In the end I lost my temper with him and that seems to have jolted him out of it and today he has been back to doing his exercise with gusto. And he has resumed his school work too. I felt pretty crap, but I knew that he needed it.

Overall, if I am being honest both Nick and I are a bit concerned that he has not improved more. We both keep being told that it will take a long time but sometimes I wonder if we are clutching at straws when we see an improvement. And I spend a lot of my time trying to stop myself worrying about it. But it's not easy! I keep deciding to book an appointment with our GP, but then I don't as I wonder whether we are just being impatient. I am beginning to try and find out where he should be at at 3 months post op as we are nearly there and 3 months seems like a long time.

 

Posted with Blogsy

9 weeks post op

Two main aspects to the last week...

1. Nick is gradually increasing how many lessons at school he can make in a day, and
2. Working on improving his pelvic mobility.

Our weekly summary.....

• Sitting. Can make it through a double lesson (1 hr 20 mins) but gets up in the middle to loosen his back. Doesn't enjoy the double periods and really they are still a struggle for him but he is managing them
• Standing. As before, stands well when not in pain but tilts his pelvis when in pain
• Finds lying down the only really effective way to alleviate pain. Still needs quite a lot of lying down time to recover. Is now lying on his front propped up on his elbows as part of his physio exercises which he seems to like
• Muscles - Nick says that they don't feel tight any more so it looks like all that stretching has finally paid off!
• Bending forwards. Still not great, about a quarter of the way down his shin but he is trying not to focus on this in favour of focusing on improvements elsewhere
• Physio exercises - see new 9 week post op tab. Now working on pelvic mobility
• Has asked for another sports massage as he found it really helped
• Emotionally - says 'Don't feel too bad', and he seems generally more cheerful

Schooling

Has managed three full days and one half day. He was ill with a 'mini-flu' type thing on the fifth day. So missing some classes and only just about keeping up but this is an improvement overall. The downside of the extra time at school is that he spends more time in pain, which results on poor posture, and it can be hard for him to do his physio exercises. He now gets up at 6 am to do a set before he leaves - not easy for a teenager!

Pelvic tilting

His physio felt that Nick needed to correct his posture, and in particular his tendency to tilt his pelvis when in pain. However, Nick finds it really hard to do pelvic tilts, so he is having to learn how to do them. See tab on 9 weeks post op exercises. Hard work getting him to do them often enough (they're just not cool for a teenage boy).

Nick is the taller one on the left. For this photo he is trying to stand straight but is still tilting his pelvis. The other boy is my older son, one year older than Nick - he does a lot of strength and conditioning work as he is rower so perhaps not a very fair comparison for Nick!

Emotionally

Nick seems much more calm and settled now. It's possible that being back at school helps to distract him from his back, plus he gets to see all his friends again which cheers him up. But he is really looking forward to the half term break next week so that he can rest more plus have more time to do his physio exercises more often.

 

Posted with Blogsy

8 weeks post-op - tough times

This last week seems to have felt like really hard work, for both Nick and myself.

Nick has found it very tough trying to get back to school, constantly trying but not managing. And every time he does make it to a lesson he ends up with more work to do whilst having to recover from making the lesson in the first place. He admitted to me that he had considered stopping school completely, which is extraordinary for him because he has always been completely determined to complete his schooling.

He was in school for a full day yesterday, which we now realise was a bit too soon. He was absolutely shattered afterwards and consequently needed a lie-in the next morning.

He is also still worried that something is not right, or at least that he is not progressing as much as he should be. His physio was re-iterating to him yesterday that it will take time because his nerve was compressed for so long. Also, Nick was using how far forwards he could bend as an indicator of progress. The physio discouraged this, pointing out that other aspects may be improving (eg how long he can sit) so he shouldn't focus on just one indicator.

He's had the start of a couple of flare-ups, but each time we have managed to divert it by rest or Diazepam. Each time it has been sitting that has caused the problem.

People are now starting to ask when he'll be starting to play tennis again - well meant questions but for someone who struggles to sit yet alone run it doesn't really help being asked when he can play tennis!

His year group at school are going through various activities designed to help them plan university/career paths which is creating another cause of anxiety for him. Hardly surprisingly he can't contemplate careers when all he has ever wanted to do was to play tennis and that's something he can't do at the moment.

Overall, this is where he is at...

• Can sit for about an hour at a time before his upper back starts to ache and he feels stiff
• Generally standing and walking properly unless pain has kicked in, when he then tends to lean forwards
• Only once taken any pain meds this week, and that was after sitting for too long
• Still needing to lie down a lot
• Finds gentle stationary cycling helps to mobilise his back
• Muscles - generally he says his muscles feel looser... hamstrings slightly, glutes fine, calves slightly. New last night at the physio was that his QL is tight
• Tried a sports massage last night, focusing on his QLs, glutes and hamstrings. Also being taught to breathe better to help relax. Comment re sports massage - yes, seems to have helped
• Emotionally, fragile. Ups and downs. Sometimes very worried about it all, sometimes pretty calm
• Schooling - tricky but slowly managing to sit through some lessons. Took an iPad into school yesterday so that he could type lying down. Double lessons still a bit of a nightmare for him
• Some of his physio exercises trigger pain on occasions so he tends to mix and match what he does, avoiding those that are painful. No new exercises added this week to his 7 week routine

Each evening we plan out the next day. I then email school and his teachers to let them know when Nick is hoping to be in and I keep my fingers crossed that he'll wake up the next morning feeling ready for it. It does make it hard for me to get much done as I never know in advance when I will be needed to take/collect him to/from school but we have found that planning more than one day in advance just doesn't work.

Posted with Blogsy