I just got back home yesterday from inpatient rehab yesterday from having my decompression surgery back on 1/17/2014. I had a craniectomy and a laminectomy, the doctor also mention about fixing an out of place disk, not sure what that meant. They closed my incision with my own skin instead of a dura patch.
When I had my surgery done, there was one complication, which makes me greatfull to be alive. The complication was from the breathing tube kept herniating and didn't want to stay in place due to my small neck and jaw, because of that I almost suffocated to death during the surgery. I was in icu for 1 day, then in a regular room for 3 or 4 days.
When I was discharged I went to inpatient rehab, at that time I couldn't look left or right, my neck felt like concrete. Also because of the complication, my tongue was swollen and I couldn't open my jaw without having a ton of pain, so I had trouble eating for awhile. Also had problems with walking and standing, I had problems with pain and balance when I stood up and made me feel really feint. So for several weeks I felt completely dependent for awhile on everything.
After weeks gone by with tons of sleeping and daily physical and occupational therapy I feel a lot better. My headaches are gone, I haven't taken any narcotic pain meds in about 3 weeks now..but I still take some ibuprofen. My head now feels soo much better then before the surgery, I'm now able to sneeze and cough without it feeling like I'm getting hit in the head with a baseball bat. Also I now can fall asleep naturally and not depend on several sleeping medications with taking 2 tablets of 3mg of melatonin on top of that while lying in bed for over an hour trying to doze off, now I can go to bed without any meds and no melatonin and fall asleep within minutes and sleep less and wake up a lot more refreshed.
Now that I'm back home, I can slowly turn my neck side to side like I could before the surgery. I can also walk like I did before the surgery, however I still have problems with balance because of the numbness and weakness I have on my left side of my body, but what does help is wearing a knee brace for my left knee (to prevent the knee from buckling) while holding onto a cane for support.
I'm glad to be able to do the basic things again that I couldn't do after the surgery, however I still have to be careful. I am home alone again and I'm not allowed to go up and down the stairs by myself while my mom is at work but when I have someone home to watch me, I'm able to go up the stairs just fine while going up very slow.
I know its been awhile since I last posted so I thought I would share my progress on how I'm doing and thinking of those people out there that also struggles with CM.