Have you ever heard 210 pounds hitting the floor?
I hadn't.
Not until Thursday night.
Steve has a bad back (herniated, bulging discs in his lower back - specifically L4, L5, and S1). We've been dealing with this for about 15 years if my memory serves me correctly.
It flares for whatever reason: randomly (like this time), or something like picking up Ava the wrong way. Or sneezing. It happens maybe once every year or every other year? Sometimes it's not bad at all - a couple of days of stiffness or pain, a few Ibuprofen and he's on his way.
5 years ago he had a very bad flare up. So bad he needed large dose of steroids (Prednisone) and then he went in for a cortisone shot (in his back, people, in between vertebrae, under X-Ray). That worked and he hasn't had any issues since then.
Until last week.
He woke up last Sunday (October 4) in pain.
It has gotten progressively worse. And then Thursday night (10/8) I experienced something I wish to never experience again.
But I did.
My husband is what you'd call a "man's man" if you will. He's big, relatively burly at 6'2" and 210lbs. He's my mountain man, lumberjack, mechanic husband.
My everything.
I woke up Thursday night to the loudest, most deadening THUD and a guttural groan from the floor. I wake up in a panic to see Steve LAID out on the floor.
Prior to this, he was on his stomach, on our bed, perpendicular to me, laying "normally."
He tried to get up from this position to get some cereal and pinched the nerve. The pain was so excruciating and he was "stuck" because of the bulging discs pressing on his sciatic nerve, going all the way down his left leg.
So in order to get himself out of this position, he flung his body off the bed and landed on top of the dog, who was on the floor. He was then stuck on the floor for about 45 minutes and he was in the most pain he's ever been in (that's what he told me later).
I witnessed my big, strong husband in an incredible amount of pain and there was nothing I could do. For a minute I sat there rocking and crying. Then I just asked "what can I do" while he's WRITHING in pain on the floor, on his stomach. Just groaning and moaning and ugh. It was horrible.
He managed to get his arms up on our bed, but he has ZERO core strength to life himself up vertically. I can't lift him. I mean, I've been working out, but NOPE.
I end up crawling underneath him on my hands and knees so his chest/stomach is on my back. I then lift up and give him enough leverage to stand up. Once he was up, he was MUCH better.
I was so terrified I told him we were NOT waiting for his appointment ON MONDAY.
Fuck that shit.
Here's the thing. Steve isn't a dramatic person.
He doesn't always tell the 100% truth about his pain and all of that.
So he wanted me to go with him because he knows I'll be loud about it.
So we get the appointment for after the girls' half day of school and head there.
Well, because of FUCKING COVID, I'm not allowed back there with him. He promises me he'll tell them everything - hitting the floor, being unable to move and in HORRIBLE pain for 40 minutes.
So he comes out to the parking lot, limping and the doc has prescribed some steroids, which is what we knew he needed. I knew the dosage they gave him seemed weak. It just did. I've been on this drug enough times to know.
So we were SO hopeful that Friday night would be better. Just enough relief to let the poor man sleep for more than 30 minutes at a time.
Nope.
First, I will say, if you haven't heard your significant other yell out in extreme pain, you are lucky.
This time I witnessed the whole thing, unfortunately.
The first time is burned into my brain. I keep getting flashes.
It reminds me of the time my dad was suffering and I was the only one there for him.
I felt so helpless.
We got the girls to bed and settled in. He was anxious already because of the previous night. We thought we got him in a good position. But then, we made a mistake.
We let his head/shoulders get below his hips.
As I tried to get couch cushions ready to let him shimmy over, he must've moved or something and the nerve pinched. He screamed out in pain and THREW HIMSELF ON THE FLOOR AGAIN.
The pinch didn't unpinch and he proceeded to writh in pain on the floor, making sounds I had never heard before.
I was terrified beyond belief.
I managed to squeak out "I have to do something, I'm calling 911" and he said "yeah, you need to call someone."
So I called 911 and got EMS on their way.
It took them almost 30 minutes.
This entire time, the pain never let up. He was pulling himself forward with his arms and dragging his legs behind him to try to relieve the pressure off the nerve.
None of it worked.
At this point, his yelling in pain has woken up Ava so I have to run up to her and comfort her quick and then come back down and keep checking on Steve and keep checking the door. We live out in the middle of nowhere, remember, so my house isn't easy to see at 4am.
Running back and forth between Steve in our bedroom and the front door.
Once EMS got there, they saw and heard him on the floor and worked to get him into a standing position. By this point it had been maybe 40 minutes of intense, unrelenting pain.
Once he was up on his feet, the pain lessened, but not much. He was being stubborn and didn't want to take the ride in the ambulance. But he did go, after some persuasion (and tears and me threatening to call his mother at 4am).
He spent about 9 hours at the hospital and because of COVID, I wasn't allowed to go with him anyway, so I stayed back with the kids and waited for the phone call.
He was able to get an emergency MRI and the results are terrible.
The morning doctor is the one who saw the scans and he went to see Steve before discharging him and said "Holy shit you can take a lot of pain, you have a VERY big issue going on here - it's not anything new, but it's much worse than we thought."
He has bulges pushing on his sciatic nerve that's 1.5cm X 1.1cm X .8cm.
That's pretty big.
The doctor, after seeing the scans was not at all surprised he was in the ED and arrived via ambulance.
I've never been so scared. I've never seen him like that and I hope to never see it again.
But that's what I said Thursday night...
The anxiety is real people. He just needs to sleep and rest for a few hours.
His dad went out and bought him a power recliner so he can give his body some relief and be on his back. Up until now he's been stuck on his stomach in a kneeling position, like he's praying in a church pew.
We went out and bought this little stool and cut the legs on it. Steve said to me "it reminds me of the stool in Beauty and the Beast" lol I love this man. But yes, he's been sleeping like this, too. We knew this was ok because when he was at the hospital, they raised the bed as high as it could go and he kneeled on a chair like this for like 8 hours. His knees/legs are gonna be shot, but so far so good.
He found this to be a comfortable position. He was able to sleep one night like this for a few hours before switching back to his belly/kneeling position. I get up each time with him to get him set up. And he needed help with his socks, so I took the opportunity to put fuzzy socks on him. LOL.
UPDATE:
On Tuesday, 10/13 we saw a Neurosurgeon.
He looked at Steve's MRI scans and within 10 seconds said to us "Well, you're not lying. You have a couple of severe herniations and we can either do shots, more physical therapy, or I can fix it."
We asked him what "fix it" meant.
Minimally Invasive Surgery.
Discectomy to remove the herniated part of the discs. He has two bad herniations.
One inch and a half long incision to get to both parts. Then lobbing off the protrusions that are literally squeezing the nerve between it and bone.
The doctor said it's a 95% success rate and for the other 5% it's usually due to the fact that so much damage had been done prior to surgery.
Surgeon said it'd take about 3 hours and he'd walk out of there.
Recovery is about 3 weeks. Although that's obviously not going to get him back to 100% - he'll have to do a lot of physical therapy and rehab and such to get range of motion and strength back. Hopefully within 6 months he'll be feeling close to 100% again. Or by 6 months he'll get to "as good as he's going to get" stage and we'll see what that is.
Steve asked specifically if after surgery he'd be back lifting, skiing, etc. And the doctor said "that's why we do surgery, so you can go back to living."
We're probably going to go for it.
It's scheduled for October 30. We are hoping to get in sooner and there's a chance it can happen on the 28th.
Now we just have to get him through the next two weeks.
*Steve gave me permission to blog about this topic and about his ongoing recovery journey.
