the nurse came and collected Sonja for the operation

Arrived at Quiron hospital “Clinica” 7:30am. A cab was waiting for us at 7:15am. By 8am we were in Sonja’s room, Yolanda met us in reception and escorted us through the check in and to her room explaining everything. The nurse came in about 8:15 and took blood pressure and asked the usual questions. By […]

First impressions Barcelona and the first trip to the Hospital

We are getting way more attention and service than we would typically expect in the U.S. Paid for cab’s, ferrying us to and from the hospital, an escort through each room and consultation at the hospital, very little waiting around.  The picture is one of the many pretty views from the Hospital. Having said that, […]

First post from Tim for Sonja – We are now installed in…

First post from Tim for Sonja – We are now installed in our cooool apartment in Barcelona with 8.72Mbs of bandwidth, bit slower than I am used to….   but pretty good I guess!  Big operation day tomorrow, so will be distracted over the next 2 -3 days, probably…  We had a meeting with the surgeon […]

My new umbrella arrived, yeah!

My new umbrella arrived, yeah! Silly but it’s one of those things I’ve been meaning to get for ages. I love walking but the older I get the harder it is for me to control my core temperature and the easier I burn.  Don’t ask me how but I’ve been known to blister, badly I […]

Barcelona here we come, 8 days…….

Barcelona here we come, 8 days……. Well so much for my posting every day. That went out the window when the pain upped.  Hard to do anything except just what's necessary to get through the day.  Work comes first, if we don't keep working on our business we don't make any money and I have […]

13 days and counting………

Wow less than 2 weeks till we fly out. Getting a bit nervous now. Am I doing the right thing? Do I really need this surgery? Can we really afford it? Will it just help or will it actually solve the problem? Will I even survive? The pain in my back had been pretty bad […]

So what is pain anyway?

So what is pain anyway? From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Pain is an unpleasant feeling often caused by intense or damaging stimuli, such as stubbing a toe, burning a finger, putting alcohol on a cut, and bumping the "funny bone". The International Association for the Study of Pain's widely used definition states: "Pain is an […]

20 days and counting……

20 days and counting till we leave for Barcelona, wow less than 3 weeks now! Been a long day today, didn’t take anything to help me sleep last night and was awake again at 5 am, it sucks!  I am NOT a morning person (ask Tim) and when your back hurts too it’s a double […]

21 Days and Counting……

Fentanyl Patch not really working! A couple of weeks ago I felt another piece of disk break off and it hurt like hell, I finally gave up trying to tough out the pain and not take too many Lortab so the doc just gave me some new meds, a Fentanyl patch. I put on the […]

22 Days and counting

We have 22 days till we fly out and it can't come soon enough.  But I am getting ahead of myself. I’m going to start by giving you some of my findings in the hope that it will help your search for an answer. It has taken me a long time to find all the […]

M6 Artificial Disc Replacement

Anatomy of an M6 Artificial Disc Well here I am between the devil and the deep blue sea, between a rock and a hard place, between…… you get the idea.  Anyone who has been reading this blog knows I have been battling back pain and Degenerative Disc Disease for a canny few years now. My […]

The results are in and it’s not all in my head!

Well, not exactly anyway.  I'm sure there's a lot rattling around in there that a lot of people have questioned over the years but this at least is real, and I can prove it ;o) The results from the MRI are in and although it's not the best of news it's not that bad either, […]

Another MRI with dye

You know after everything I have gone through over the last 2+ years with my back you would think they could have sorted it out by now. I should be so lucky. Where's Dr Crusher when you need her or even the holo Doc? at least he knows how to put Borg nanobots to good […]

Successful Surgery

Monday, October 26th and we had to get up waaaay to early!! I was due at the hospital at 7:30am so had to be up at 6am to shower and it takes about 45 minutes to get to the hospital and we wanted an additional 15 minutes for rush hour traffic. Yes, it’s one of […]

I don’t like being fragile!

It’s amazing how life can throw you curve balls, just when you think you have a handle on things everything changes!  I did my back in again about three months ago and although I did physio for 2 months until they decided that there was nothing more they could do for me I was about […]

More Back Surgery

Well for those of you that don’t follow me on FaceBook I thought I’d let you all know what’s up.  My back has been playing up for the last three months and my Orthopedic surgeon sent me for physio but it only helped about 70%.  Then Sunday I went to lift something, twisted wrong and […]