The Spinal Fusions
Sept. 20, 1995
[An email response to this subject on a post-polio email list.]
I had my spinal fusion when I was ten. WHAT? Yes, ten. I had polio when I was five. It left everything wasted. By the age of nine, my back had collapsed into such a bad s-curve that one shoulder was about five inches higher than then other. The docs didn't want to do the fusion until I had at least reached puberty, but had no choice. By the age of ten I was in such bad shape they had to do it then.
The whole thing was a long, drawn-out process. A year or more? I can't remember. A few months ago I got my records from the Shriner's hospital and read their description of the procedure - rather gruesome! (Crushing pieces of the vertebrae to stuff in between to make the bones fuse together.) From a 10-yr. old's point of view, I remember first being laid on a narrow band of canvas in the middle of a wooden frame. A strap was put around my hips, another under my chin and skull. Then a handle was slowly turned that stretched the spine out. When it was straight, with the straps stil holding it that way, they put a plaster cast around my trunk, incorporating the canvas band I was lying on. When the cast was hardened, they loosened the straps, then cut me out me free of the canvas at either end of the cast.
I was in that cast for about a month until my back muscles were comfortable with their new length and position. Then the first half of my spine was fused. I woke up on the operting table in the middle of the surgery. The surgeon was not amused. "PUT THIS #@*& KID BACK TO SLEEP!" were the last words I heard until I woke up again in my hospital ward. I was pretty miserable for some days from the pain. The cast I was in came way up under my chin and around the back of my head, holding my head absolutely rigid. I complained about it's hurting my jaws. But no one seemed to investigate until one nurse finally did, and found that "they" had neglected to pad the edges of the cast. The sharp plaster was cutting into my jaw, which was by then infected. I still have the scars. I don't say that unkindly. The Shriners' always had the best of the best. But I'll bet one anethetist got fired, and I hope the plasterer at least got a reprimand.
As soon as the back pain eased enough, they got me up to exercise. I learned to walk again (this was learning-to-walk time number four), my weak legs carrying this extra heavy load.
Seems it was about three or four months later that they did the second operation to fuse the other half of my spine. In all, it is fused from L2 to T4. This time I didn't wake up on the table, but I did wake up early in the recovery room. The first thing I saw was a rack of about four bottles of blood dripping into my veins. I decided it would be better to go back to sleep. The pain after this one was worse than the first. It was AWFUL!!! I could feel the foot steps of everyone who came into the ward. I was allowed to ask for pain-killing shots, but they didn't kill it. I remember nearly going through the ceiling when another girl's visitor pulled an aluminum chair next to the girl's bed. My parents asked them to kindly not do that! I was on my back so long that once I got up I had to again learn how to walk.
After three months I was allowed to go home. But soon landed back in the hospital. One morning, wearing knitted slippers, my foot slipped on the linoleum floor, and I fell with the weight of my cast right on top of my right leg. I had a fracture below the knee. So, they put a cast on that leg from thigh to ankle, leaving my foot free so I could still walk. I must have been quite a sight!
Every few months after that the docs began to gradually cut the body cast down. First removing the head-piece (my head felt like a bouncing ball until I got some neck strength back), then one shoulder strap. Then a new thinner cast with a smaller shoulder piece. Finally the whole thing came off. The whole process consumed all of fourth grade and more - my Mom taught me at home.
Doing the surgery at age ten stunted whatever growth I might have had left in me, but that would not have been much. I was always very small. It didn't help the unbalanced strength (weakness) of my back muscles, so I now have a minor c-curve in my fused spine. But I'm glad the fusion was done. I have not exerienced the back pain some speak of. It stabalized my trunk, giving me the full mobility my legs were capable of. And it has kept me from having the vertebrae and rib displacement problems of some of us with PPS-declining back muscle strength. My legs, arms and neck are enough for me to deal with now! I don't know that I'd have the strength now to take such a physically traumatic surgery, either.
Glad to be movin'.
--Elinor
