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 (Dr. Clavel) and various tests at the hospital today.  We are really impressed with the quality of the hospital, the expertise and approachability of the surgeon and also how helpful the staff are.

Our first day (yesterday) was a challenge as we were very jet lagged, arriving about 9am on Monday and could not get into the apartment till two pm.

We took a walk to the city center though to stay awake and enjoyed a lunch out under open restaurant canopies in the middle of the street. The staff at the apartment management office were amazingly helpful, ferrying us to and from the apartment and taking us to the nearest cellphone store, also acting as an interpreter, hence we now have local cell phones! 

The apartment is great with a really pleasant patio with a really good expanding sun shade.  So far we have slept and found a local food store about 5 minutes from the apartment.  Gotta get a foam mattress, they are sooo comfortable.

Now that I am awake for the first time since we arrived I worked a bit on a new website, just refining it a bit.  Check it out http://www.galeandvallance.com/ !!! I love my job, I can be productive anywhere!

Sonja is in good spirits, slightly less cranky than normal and feeling very positive about the operation.  She decided to go for ADR for L3/4, L4/5, L5/S1, 3 disks!!!!!  The surgeon was very confident that she would be directly out of back pain after the op, expecting her to be able to be active and walking about after the first (recovery) week. The nurse (Yolanda) was incredibly helpful but warned us that the first 24 hours after the op would be painful, like being repeatedly kicked in the stomach.

Interestingly they anticipate Americans needing more drugs (painkillers) than locals as they appear to take and be prescribed more and are therefore generally more resistant to their effects.