Kickas.org Forums Treatments, Drugs and Alternatives Surgery Has anyone had Pedicle subtraction Osteotomy ?

Timeline is muddy really Wendy. These are all incidents in a fairly chronolgical order. Because I write instantly (Never plan or think about it hence my poor efforts) there will be some duplication. or contradiction.


I went to work for the royal in the early 80's (Breadsticks not invented then- but I would still have won the duel with a rampant pizza slice) fell from the tower mid 80s, I thought that my forward bend would prevent backwards movement, nit realising that leaning my head back would in fact roll all of me backwatds,


I will sit and think and plot out the timeline but is so much stuff littered across the years I become confused.

I was Born 1948....yay I know that bit is right. and it is now 2009. so 6 decades to order. I will do it tonight.

Brain must be a bit fuzzy at your age .Not long now to your old age pension then you can put your feet up.
HELLO MIG

As we say up here Kevin, 'I have been your age, there is no guarantee that you will ever be mine'.....lol Hello Mig eh, careful, she is admin and tough on first time offenders, oh yes she kicked me off the board for a minth, all because..........well best not admit my naughtiness.


Hi Kevin, how go things. How far are you fron the coast?

Is Brighton millions of miles away? My dad is 85, I would quite like to drive him to Brighton and leave him with you.......ooooops sorry I mean take him back around his old hunting grounds, wonder if we could perhaps meet?

Hi Alan No but as we say down here Ill have fun trying...lol Hastings is on the coast about 48 miles from Brighton.Yes it would be good to meet when were you thinking of going to brighton.

Hi Alan,

I'm pretty sure you would have won the duel with any weapon of your choice, through sheer luck, if your stories are anything to go by.

I had a sense that the hotel story was in the 80s - so you were in your mid-late thirties by then. How old were you when your spine became completely fused? Had that happened by the time you fell from the tower? It sounds like it but, if that's the case, then you were still working despite your disability.

Good g0d, man! What a life you've led!

Hi Wendy.
Just as a point of interest I worked In engeneering untill 12 years ago and had some very hairy moments hanging of roofs and inside tanks A lot of people ive met with AS have still worked untill they drop.
Hope your well rested now and feeling ok.
Kevin

Thanks, Kevin.

It's both impressive and reassuring to know that people can work through pain and disability. I've had some despairing moments thinking that I might not be able to continue in my job which I love, so I'm always on the lookout for stories from people who have found ways to keep going and make it work, especially when their disability is severe. It makes me feel more hopeful, although I'm well aware that all jobs are different and everyone is affected differently by pain levels and limited range of motion.

Anyway, good on you. I'd love to hear some of your hair-raising stories as well.

I done some realy stupid things in my life.One day my best mate was changing the engine in hes car and asked me to go with him to the scrap yard to get another one.I was about 20 so AS coming along nicely.Well we took the engine out of the doner car and had it resting on the front while he went to get help to carry it across the road to the truck.Stupid me couldnt be botherd to wait so picked it up and put it in the truck. Made my back ache.Im afraid pain dosent stop me doing silly things even now. The longer you can keep going the better you will be but dont be stubborn like me and hurt your self.
Kevin

Hmm... that sounds like good advice.

1001,


I recovered from my near fatal fall from the scaffold. A fire alarm rang a day or two later, I was the hotel fire officer I was in the yard and so I ran into the staff entrance, a metal shutter. In my haste to save all hotel staff and guests from a life threatening false alarm (we never got to have a real fire-thankfully) I dashed to the shutter, saw that it was on the way down but barely, so 'ducked' under it as I hurried in.........Well, nearly hurried in, but was belayed by a newly discovered affect of Ankylosing Spondylitis. I wondered how it was that my eyes saw the shutter descending, my brain adjusted my posture to take me under it as it descended........well nearly except AS, fooled my brain and I was an inch too high as I went under........Arghhhhhhh........ next thing, I was on the floor blood everywhere and the shutter still descending. My head hurt like hell, thankfully, Johnny Ball, a chef....cripes Johnny Ball.havent seen him for years.....cripes.......oh, sorry yes, I was just inside the shutter, in fact it was he who had pressed the close button, and as such the guilty party....lol, he grapped my arms and pulled me along the floor as the shutter rang out a final closing serenade of metal grinding into a metal c/sill.

So off to the hospital again......."It's him again" the staff shouted as I went in clutching a bath towel sized cotton wool pad to my throbbing nut........stitched and all ok. I learned that AS interferes with sensory judgements and as such, slow tempo and entering through non moving shutters might be a better approach to fire fighting. Anyway, I didn't save anyone that day, not even my former, now well tarnished tough guy image!

I am well into the 1980's by now, was really bent forward. A chambermaid who entered a lift (elevator) that I was in greeted me beautifully succinctly, #

"Ayup (hello) Spastic"

She chortled merrily to herself, admiring her own fine humour. I was very aware that I looked different, really different and it was bugging me.

I had always been happy to be tall, despite the discrimination that smaller people seem to have for the tall! Now I was 'quasimodesque', people were laughing and pointing at me. Talking with each other about the crippled maintenance man. I was embarrassed often, and usually kept away from the jobs that were adjacent to people.

Unhappy in some ways with my work, having always aspired to some sort of cerebral role in life I decided to return to college. I was and am a terrible scholar, so this was a brave decision for me, guided really by the knowledge that one day soon, AS would make any kind of physical labour difficult, or impossible, and that the bending was increasing at a rate of knots, I decided to do an IPM, yep you got it, an

IPM!!!

Oh you aren't sure??

OK. 'Institute of Personnel Management'.

Bernard, my boss, Nooooooooo Mr Greaves dont do that do teaching....what? Mind your business
Bernie Q..............and yet when I went away it struck me..teaching ADULTS, yes I liked that thought

And so it was that I came to meet Deborah Melluish, a gay midwifery sister, cleverly enigmatically known as Mel...lol

Mel gave me the best advice ofmy life, she became the heart an soul of me ......Mel died 2 years ago, she was 48, her death still not understood, her partner Val, ever distraught.......more of Mel tomorrow..................