My Surgical Procedure

Here is my understanding of what Dr. Fiegenbaum will do for me. He will deflate my cyst, he will plug the opening of the cyst with my own fat. He will wrap the nerve root with Duraguard(twice) and suture it all in place. Luckily, I have a menigeal divirticulum, which means the cyst itself is devoid of nerves, which is good, a true Tarlov cyst has nerves running through it, which makes it much harder to operate on (having to separate nerves from cyst). There are still risks, as there are nerves all around the cyst, so he has to be very careful not to injure any of the surrounding nerves. Perhaps this is the reason there are so few neurosurgeons in the United States that even want to tackle this type of surgery, it is such a risky procedure.

On a Yahoo health board, a member describes the procedure as "cysts are like balloons. They are not hard. Imagine a balloon being deflated and then wrapped so it cannot inflate again." Dr. Fiegenbaum CANNOT remove this cyst, it is part of me, I believe a part of my dural tube. I may have said this before, but I believe Dr. F said that I have had this since birth, similar to spina bifida and some trauma (for me lifting a too heavy piece of lumber) caused trama to my spine and started the cyst to start filling up with cerebral spinal fluid, thus inflating the cyst so big that it is pressing on all my nerves. My surgery is at 1:00 on the 18th of Dec.

December 18th!!

December 18th is the date of my surgery. I will be traveling to Overland Park, KS and having surgery at Heartland Spine and Speciality Hospital www.hssh.org with Dr. Frank Feigenbaum. I have to be there on Wednesday for my pre-surgery consultation and then have surgery on Friday, most likely will be discharged in 3-4 days after surgery. Since I live so close (4-5 hrs), they are going to let me drive home and return in 3-4 weeks for my post-op appt. I am waiting for my packet of info., so I can make my travel arrangments. I am so excited to be finally moving on with this. He normally only does surgery on Tuesday/Thursdays, but I explained how I really want surgery this year due to my insurance rates going up so much next year and the fact that I have already met my deductible and part of my max. out of pocket. It is so nice that the are squeezing me in. I should be home and celebrating Christmas, it isn't until about a a few weeks to a month post-op when the nerves start healing that I will begin the pain roller-coaster.

Insurance Approval Received

I received a call from Debbie in Dr. F's office today and she said that they received insurance approval today. Yippee. She said the only way I could still have my surgery this year is if I am willing to have surgery around Christmas. I told her I was fine with that. I should know soon the exact date, so I can start making my reservations. Chris is going to try to get a week of vacation fronted to him from next year. We may have to celebrate Chrismas early this year. I can't wait to find out my surgery date and get our hotel booked. Must start Christmas shopping pronto!