Mike,
My life blew up in my face just before Christmas last year. I had a L4-L5 microdiscectomy June of 2005 and was kind of OK until the disk ruptured. I would never have another microdiscectomy or "decompression" done on my back. I sent my MRI to Stenum, they diagnosed them, sent me a hard quote, and offered several surgury dates. They said that obviously L4-L5 had to be done and that L5-S1 and L3-L4 were boarderline at best. I told them that my spine was in their hands and did so with total confidence. Their people are really special. Dr. Ritter Lang did the one level with a Maverick in 67 minutes with an epidural for anesthesia. It really wasn't too big a deal. I was up and walking the next day and have continued to get better each day since. It has been exactly 7 weeks since the surgury and my life has returned to near normal. The last time I saw my daughter, who goes to college in Arizona, was during Christmas break. I was on 60mg of Oxycotin a day and confined to my lazy boy in big pain all the time. She will be home next week for Spring Break and I will be able to hike,bike,cook, have a conversation, you know - all the normal stuff. I am passing on skiing because my wife would kick my --- if I did. But I think I could do a couple of runs. ADR can be a near miracle if you luck out like I did. Personally, I would not have it done in the US unless you can find a surgeon that has done at least 100 ADR's. Insurance is nice, but when I was dealing with my life I made the choice to find what I thought was the best. It cost about the same as a new pick-up. Ritter Lang has done over 1400 ADR's over the last 20 years, and DR. Zechel has similar experiance. Good luck in what ever you decide to do.
Grizz
Microdiscectomy 06-2005
ADR 01-12-2007
|