We never intended to spend this amount of time wintering in Carrollton, TX. Nope! We arrived on 1 October to attend Jon and Katherine’s wedding two weeks later (see blog titled The Bunner-Hearty Wedding, 15 October 2023), then expected we’d take care of all our personal issues (see below), and return to the road by end March or early April. Boy did our plans change.
After the wedding, but sometime in early November, I woke up with a slight but persistent soreness in my right Rhomboid (back) muscle. Fortunately, I was still able to do my morning routine: 30 minutes of core-strengthening and muscle stretching followed by a 3-4 mile hike while carrying a 25 pound backpack at a 3.8 mph pace. Unfortunately, the next morning I was experiencing pain and tingling in my right arm and hand in addition to the sore Rhomboid. I could barely finish my hike. The arm-hand pain was so great I cried out several times for my long-dead mother. I periodically tried my routine over the next two months with little success, and came to recognize I had a pinched neck nerve, which required attention.
But first things first. We knew in advance of our Carrollton arrival that both of my shoulders needed to be checked, and we fully expected I would need repair surgery on one or both. X-rays and ultrasounds confirmed I had bursitis in both shoulders, but worse on the right. The PAs seeing me prescribed Meloxicam, an oral pill to address joint pain, swelling, and stiffness to be followed by a pain management shot. Neither thought surgery was required. H-m-m-m! I thanked them for their thorough diagnosis and prognosis, but politely demanded they send me for an MRI on both shoulders (MFI was adamant on this). They ordered the meds and the MRI. I opted out of any pain management shots.
Several weeks later, I met with Dr. Cori Grantham, board-certified orthopedic-surgeon, and the MRIs confirmed I needed a surgical repair on my right shoulder. There was lots of floating junk and my bicep tendon had to be reattached. By the next appointment, I was pain-free in both shoulders because of the Meloxicam, and we scheduled the right-shoulder surgery for 9 January 2023. The arthroscopic surgery was completed without a hitch, and after two weeks, the bandaging was removed, and I began 6 weeks of physical therapy (PT). Dr. Grantham took pictures inside my shoulder, so I was able to see exactly what she accomplished, and I’m extremely pleased with the result. As of this writing, it’s a little more than four months since the surgery, and I’m pain free. I still have crunching and clicking in both shoulders but no associated pain. That sound you hear is me knocking on wood.
Toward the end of my PT, however, the pain and tingling in my right arm caused by the suspected pinched nerve worsened to the point I had to stop PT. Concurrently, I got an MRI on the cervical part of my neck, C1 to C7. The MRI results showed light to severe stenosis for all my cervical discs. Dr. Richard Meyrat, the board-certified neuro-surgeon who successfully repaired nerve restrictions in my L4-L5 facets five years ago, read the MRI. He concluded that while my entire neck was “really a mess” (his exact words), the disc between C5 and C6 was the problem, and he recommended an Anterior Cervical Discectomy Fusion (ACDF). He got no argument from me. At this point I couldn’t even walk 300 yards to empty the garbage without great pain and tingling.
The surgery was done on 20 April 2023. The ACDF involved entering the front of the neck through a 2-inch horizontal incision, pulling aside muscle and esophagus, removing the damaged disc material, replacing the disc with a titanium cage, and screwing a plate into C5 and C6 to stabilize the area until bone grew around the cage and fused the two vertabrae. Dr. Meyrat also drew bone marrow from my right hip through a small hole. He packed the marrow around the cage to facilitate bone growth. Frankly, this hole was the most painful part of recovery that first week. I stayed one night in the hospital to make sure I survived the surgery and to monitor a PICC (Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter) line inserted into the surgical field. The PICC line drained a fair amount of bloody fluid as healing progressed, and drainage stopped in about 24 hours. The next afternoon, I was discharged into MFI’s helping hands.
Normal ACDF protocol required I be seen for a follow-up appointment in four weeks, but an agreement was reached with Dr. Meyrat to move the follow-up to two weeks, so we could get on the road again. At two weeks, Dr. Meyrat said healing was progressing nicely. I’m to stay on a regimen of anti-inflammatory, muscle relaxer, and Tylenol medications every eight hours and conduct a telehealth call on 1 June.
After the surgery, I was disappointed that the pain and tingling, while improved, was not completely gone. After my back surgery five years ago, the pain relief was total and instantaneous. MFI reminded me that nerves heal slowly, and I needed to evaluate the improvement at the six week follow-up. It’s been four weeks now and there has been additional improvement, although certain movements or positions still cause some minor pain and some arm and hand tingling. I’m much more optimistic at this point.
Because of the neck surgery, we didn’t start our 2023 journey until 15 May. OK we’re late, but we’ve been on the road now for a week, and it feels great.
