Kyphoplasty Part 2

I just had my second kyphoplasty - this time on vertebra L4.  That vertebra was intact when Kyphoplasty 1 was done on T11 on September 15.  However, a significant nursing error while removing my kidney stent resulted in L4's breaking on the 29th.  To make a short story long...

After kyphoplasty 1, I wasn't getting pain relief.  However, I'd had a kidney stent placed the day before, and while that relieved another certain very painful area, I didn't realize how much general pain the stent was causing me in the same areas that had been painful, and were to be addressed by the repair of T11.  The pain was pretty intense, so my urologist decided he could remove the stent and did so on Sept. 29.  All went well until he left and the nurse came in to clean me up and help me get dressed.  She took my feet from the stirrups and dropped them to the ground, putting me in a painful over-arched-back position.  I felt something pop, but didn't think much of it, while realizing she should have helped me ease into position.  My Urologist (Dr. T) asked me to get a CT in the next few days to see if my stone was gone. (It was, as was the hydronephrosis.)

I was a bit sore, but went home without issue.  The next morning, I awoke in severe pain, and realized that the dropping of my legs had strained every muscle in my lower back. Friday I had the CT requested by my urologist, and the pain kept getting worse, not better.

In the meantime, my interventional neuroradiologist's (Dr.L) nurse  kept calling; wanting to hear of improvement in my back pain, and not happy with my reports.  I told Dr. L about the CT scan, and as soon as he got his hands on a copy (several days later, as the scan was performed in Saratoga and the disc had to be sent to Sloan Kettering in NYC) he saw that in fact, T4 was now broken and causing my pain; it wasn't strained muscles; it was a vertebral fracture.  He told me this on Thursday the 7th, scheduled me for a new kyphoplasty as quickly as he could.

Kyphoplasty yesterday went very smoothly, and lo and behold, my pain is in fact gone!  I feel like a new woman.  Spirits are back up.  Last week, I didn't know how I could go on living in such intense pain, for which nothing helped.  Now I can't wait (well a few weeks) to get back on my bike!

Sometimes it feels like magic!

Alice