Pain Doc Appointment

So, yesterday I had a doc appointment with my pain specialist.  We set up for the surgery to be on the 19th of April.  Now that it is set up, I am super nervous. It's not the lying on the table, awake and chatting, as he fixes the wire. It's the after. The almost month of no activity and a year of limited activity.

He will cut me open about 4 inches.  Located down the middle of my spine. Crank open the area and pull the wire out. He also has to open up the incision on my upper left butt cheek and take the titanium device out to test everything.  If it is going well he will test on where I feel it, then tack it down and close me up. If it stays in its place, as he closes me up, than it is all done. But if it moves (like the last time) then he will have to go back in.  It is hard to accept but I fully trust him. This is my 4th time having him mess with my spine, so the fear gets less and less each time I get cut open.

But first I have to have my pre-op appointment on the 11th.  That is usually when they bring in the Boston Scientific Technician and they test everything to clear me for what has to be done. Unfortunately, the 2 techs that I liked are gone. They quit and got replaced with a spacey guy. I am gonna have to train him. Chris always let me reprogram myself and Ariel let me do most of it. It was fun getting to mess with the programs and not having to hear "where do you feel that?" every 3 seconds. 

The way it works is that I have a remote.  It connects to a device that connects to a laptop computer.  Then you sync them and pull up the 4 different programs and the history of whats been working or not working. Then you change the frequency and stimulation focal point.  The way you do that is that you change the electrodes to on or off. If on then it is either a positive or negative.  Then you can change the numbers to change where you feel the stimulation. Then you save it and you disconnected the remote and hold it by the implant. It uploads the programs, then I am able to control it.  After that, it typically helps for awhile but sometimes it can change just by walking out. There are times that I can be reprogrammed every 4 or 5 months and other times I need to change it a few times in a month.  The people at Slocum work with me to help me stay as comfortable as possible since the pain never fully goes away.

Remote on the left,
Battery charger in the middle(that is charged by a base and then that is stuck on the outside of the titanium device),
Implant on the right(wires go down from upper spine to titanium device in upper left butt cheek.