Thanks for your kinds wishes. I'm not here on the pre-ops posting to scare you but to help you choose with intellect rather than emotion. I over E as they say. My other health issues as Clarice mentioned had nothing to do with the complications I am having now. There are several of the patients from the same surgeons that have had complications and have had to follow me to the path I've gone to get help for the complications. So I have to differ with Clarice on this point she made yesterday. In fact when I saw her in Cincinnati she made a comment about Hopkins that led me to believe that she agreed with the issues I was having with them. There has been a paper about these patients published by Dr. Ducic. I am not alone in the complications of having post surgical problems stemming from such a surgery. Neither my vocal cord paralysis from a prior laminectomy/fusion nor my fibromyalgia/EDS have anything to do with the complications I and many others have had from this surgery.
The other patients are not actively posting about the issues coming from this place. They've moved on and are no longer active here. I also am no longer active here and am trying to move on except for the fact that I had this MRSA crop up from the exchanging the Titanium Mesh with the plate made from Methylmethacrolate. My Georgetown surgeon acted quickly and scheduled an emergency surgery. I asked him how could this have happened? His answer being simple. You've had so many surgeries and that is the risk of surgery…infection. So my number was up plain and simple.
Back when I was a newbie in 2009, I was doing my careful homework and going to 5 different surgeons for opinions and all said Middle Fossa with two exceptions: Dr. Selesnick in NY Cornell where I was born. He said very briefly: 3 choices: Surgery, Radiation and Watch and Wait and said go home and think about it, wait 6 months…you have time. He wasn't expressing urgency and neither were all the others and then the next day I went to Hopkins. The surgeon said I was at risk for having a stroke and had to schedule right away. He was very fatherly and caring. I listened to him. The surgery happened 6 weeks later. I told this story to my headache nurse and she said do you have a witness for that? Yes, my father, but he is now deceased. My GW surgeon came from reading my records and was very upset with the incision done on me for the very small tumor and asked if I had any word recognition. He was very upset. He's been in practice over 40 years so he can afford to speak his mind where the younger doctors don't. On that day I made an emotional decision to listen to the recommendation that in retrospect made no sense whatsoever. The tumor wasn't even outside of the canal. I of all people trained in speech pathology and audiology should have sniffed this one out as a bad egg and odd. I didn't and went for the pitch.
So my newbie friends, what I am saying here is do your homework and make a decision to do what your intellect tells you to do and not with someone feeding into your emotions or giving you scare tactics. Go with your mind and not your heart.
I'm going back into semi-retirement from here and moving on to a post surgery/surgery free future! See you on the radio as is said!
Mei Mei
