More Surgeries

After Christmas Shawn started having some pain in his upper back.  Shawn and Kim and Wesley were spending the Christmas break here in California with us.  The pain got so bad that by the day that they were supposed to fly back home we had to take him to see the doctor.  He was given some pain meds and told he probably had a disc. problem the Dr. said 80% of disc problems are musculature.  They flew home that evening but the pain was more than Shawn could stand even with the pain meds so he went to the Dr. in Utah.  They ended up doing an MRI...and to take a long and painful story and make it short...he was in surgery 3 days after talking to the surgeon.  He had a level 4 ruptured disc.  The doctor said usually this kind of injury he sees after a bad car accident and the patient is screaming to be put out the pain is so bad!  The surgery went well, they fused his spine and after a day  in the hospital he went home with an armful of pain meds.  The pain was pretty severe...about a week after the surgery he was complaining that his lower back hurt.  He finally got them to see him in the Dr. office again.  They once again did an MRI and found that in his lower back he had a level 3 disc rupture!  Once again he found himself in surgery.  The lower disc was pretty bad.  The Dr. kept referring to Shawn as Mr. unlucky saying it was pretty rare for someone to have two discs rupture like he did.  The healing has been a long an painful one for Shawn.  He has had to take over a month off from work.  Hopefully he will be well enough to go back to work soon.  The Dr. said it will take a year before the healing is complete and the pain is gone.  He still has some numbness and loss of strength in his limbs but hopefully that will get better over time.  They have had quite a new year!  Hopefully the rest of the year is better for them!

There are good things that come from bad though...it gave us a love for Shawn's surgeon.  A wonderful show of goodness.  Not only did he give Shawn very good care, he treated him like a son.  He then told Shawn and Kim that he would not charge them for either one of the surgeries!  He would take only what the insurance would pay. 

Shawn and Kim in  San Fran. the day before leaving California to go back home to Utah...you can hardly tell how much pain Shawn is in...of course he couldn't straighten his head...he walked around holding his arm up and his head at a weird angle!