Big News (No, I'm not pregnant)

Since many of my TN friends don't know much or anything about my car accident, I'm going to review a bit. This is likely to be long, feel free to skip to the bottom. In Aug 2008 I was in a car accident where my car rolled over, and in the process managed to slam roof-first into a tree. I was air lifted to a hospital where they saw that I had broken 5 vertebrae, and a few ribs. I was also about 5 weeks pregnant (we'd found out the weekend before). Two of the vertebrae, C5 and C6 were minor fractures in my neck (basically the back of the vertebrae broke off, most likely due to the air bag deploying). I also broke T8, T9, and T10, vertebra in the center of my chest cavity. T9 was the worst, a burst fracture likely caused when the roof collapsed in when it struck the tree. I have no memory of 2 days before the accident and about 12 days after so we don't know what caused me to run off the road into that ditch. Despite being a terrible driver in my teens, I'm actually pretty good now so I like to believe that it wasn't my fault. Maybe I swerved to miss something in the road?
   Due to the pregnancy and other factors, my doctor at the time decided not to do surgery and instead I wore a hard shell plastic brace for 14 weeks. By time they removed it I was 4 months pregnant and it did NOT fit any longer! Before removing it the doctor had me undergo an MRI (in Dec 08) to check and make sure I was healed enough. At that time we noticed T9 had not healed in the correct shape, its now rather wedge-shaped. After Keely was born I was still having a good deal of back pain, worsening until the doctor had me undergo another MRI (11/09).  It showed that T9 had continued to 'crush', furthering the curvature of my spine, called kyphosis. The doctor at that time thought my spine was likely done changing shape and did not recommend surgery, saying that it was very invasive and 'experimental'.
    This past fall my usual pain level increased. I thought it might be due to the fact that I pick up Keely so much more now that I'm home all day with her. I found a new neurosurgeon here in TN and he suggested another scan, though he let me get away with a CT scan so I wouldn't have to spend ~30 minutes in a coffin. (Seriously, have you ever had an MRI? They suck.) Below are my three scans so you can see the shape of my spine and the changes over these past three years. They are in date order (08, 09, and then 10).

    After reviewing the scan he suggested that I talk to a surgeon able to repair that kind of damage, and he recommended one. I went online and found poor reviews for that surgeon so I asked to be referred to the Neurosurgeon practice attached to UT Medical Center because they were trying to do some minimally invasive thoracic surgery. Repairing the thoracic spine is complicated because its surrounded by so many organs and protected by the ribcage from the front.
     This past Thursday I met with my new neurosurgeon, Dr Abel. I was really impressed with him and he spent about 45 minutes with us making sure I understood everything. When I explained that I was pregnant when the accident occurred his first question was 'How was the baby?' He started by taking us to look at the back scans, measuring the curvature and its changes. He pointed out that T10 is changing shape as well, though I don't know if thats new or no one ever pointed it out before. He said we could continue to wait and see if the kyphosis worsens, or we could do surgery to correct it. When asked he suggested surgery due to my age and the way the pain interferes with my life.
     He actually gave us two surgical options. First, have a 2-stage surgery where they perform a thoracotomy (cut in through my ribcage, deflate my lung and move my organs out of the way to approach the spine from the front) where they would remove T9 and T10 and replace them with titanium cylinders. Then they would approach the spine from the back to put in rods and screws and do a spinal fusion. This option would completely straighten my spine (I have a noticeable hunch) and SHOULD get rid of all of my pain. Option 2 would just be the approach from the back and fusion. He thinks that they could straighten my spine some, but not completely but this should also get rid of most/all of my pain. Dr. Abel told us to go home, sleep on it, pray about it and then call back if we wanted to schedule surgery. He also wanted me to have a lower back MRI to make sure there is no damage down there causing my lower back pain. Both surgeries would involve a 6-level fusion as Dr. Abel would want to fuse two above and two below the damaged vertebrae. That would be T7-T12. This is a large portion of my spine that would no longer be mobile but he thinks as its in the thoracic cavity (which doesn't move much anyway) that I wouldn't lose much or any range of motion.
      Daniel and I spent a lot of this weekend talking about this and we've decided to go with the less invasive surgery (option 2). Per Dr Abel, should we ever decide or need to replace the vertebrae we could always do it later. I don't think the cosmetic benefit of straightening my spine is worth the thoracotomy. Most of you aren't aware of the limitations this pain puts on me, but as an example on Friday I was holding a friend's adorable 7ish month old son and after 15 minutes I was in pain. I want to be able to hold my next children as much as I want and I want to be able to play on the floor with them. Keely is so independent and I don't know if thats her nature, or if she developed that way because I couldn't hold her for long periods of time.
      I put in a phone call to Dr. Abel's nurse to schedule the surgery yesterday and I'm waiting on a call back. (I assume they have been in surgery.) We're aiming for July 8th, though I'll update when we have a for sure date. The doc says I should plan on doing nothing for about a month so I'm working on 'scheduling' people to come and take care of me and Keely. Thats why we are waiting until July, so my mom and dad can be here for a few weeks.
    I figured this post would be an easy way to tell this long story to a lot of you at once, and I know I'm going to be posting about the surgery a LOT in the coming months, since I'm already nervous about it. Its going to be a very hard recovery, but in the long run it will be worth it.

**Update - Surgery is officially scheduled for July 8th!**