Sleep wasn’t as good last night. Nothing in particular caused it that I can think of, I just couldn’t sleep well.
The dressing was changed again this morning. It had quite a bit of yellow in it, but nobody was worried about there being CSF leakage. Mr Mundil came whilst I was being bathed and suggested I be mobilised today (it didn’t happen yesterday) to see if my left leg is weaker than before as I am struggling to raise it. The physio came during the morning and got me stood up. It took a good minute or so to feel vaguely stable on my feet, and I was wobbling a hell of a lot on my stick, so she got me a zimmer frame. That felt much better. She got me to do a step forward and then back again with each foot. The right was ok, once I got confidence I could stand on my left. When it came to doing the same with the left leg though I really struggled. There was no pain, it was just that for all the effort I was putting in, my leg wouldn’t move. I did eventually manage to do a couple of steps though, and then the physio sat me in the chair. It was nice to be sat out for a bit, and so, whilst the neck pain started to worsen again, I opted to stay there to have lunch.
Mr Mundil came back to see how I was getting on. He plans to see me tomorrow with the device technician to try some other programs, including seeing if they can target the pain in my right foot. He will then reassess me again on Wednesday and decide if I can go on his Thursday theatre list for the permanent device, or whether he decides to trial a different manufacturer’s device, in which case I will be booked in to theatre on Monday for the permanent fitting.
I mentioned to him that I’d got a bit despondent when the technician was programming the device in recovery because I couldn’t feel anything across where the pain was. He said that was to be expected, but it was good news to hear that I wasn’t getting any pain. I asked if he had been able to release the adhesions on my cord, and he said he hadn’t gone down that far as he didn’t feel there would be any additional benefit, and there was every likelihood that my cord would just deviate and adhere again, so why risk causing more pain.
