I came home the same day, Friday afternoon. My daughter, Rose, chauffeured me to and from the hospital, and she even waited there all day until they let me go.

The procedure I underwent is called a laminectomy, where they shave a little bit of bone off that’s pushing on a herniated disc/nerve root. The whole thing took about an hour or so, and so far the worst pain has been my throat from where they intubated me. Though late the other night the last of the general anesthesia wore off and I was up at 4:30 a.m. taking a Vicodin in order to sleep. Right now, I’m in only a moderate amount of pain, and that mostly in transitioning–standing to sitting, sitting to lying down. In fact, lying down is the worst of it. It is very, very difficult to find a good position to sleep in.

I’m expecting to be in some amount of pain for another week to two weeks, but right now I don’t think it’ll exceed that. Time will tell. My follow up appointment is in December, which tells me they’re not too worried about my recovery. I’m on restrictions on lifting, driving, the usual.

I get to take a shower today, hooray! I’m feeling grimy.