Update: Pain Pump

Hi everyone! I wanted to update everyone and tell you about my pain pump procedure that I had on Wednesday. I know many of you have been praying for me.
I went to Dallas and underwent a trial for a pain pump.
A “pain pump,” is a method of giving medication directly to your spinal cord. The system uses a small pump that is surgically placed under the skin of your abdomen and delivers medication through a catheter to the area around your spinal cord – similar to an epidural that women may have during childbirth
The reason that they are giving me a pain pump is because most all other traditional methods have failed to relieve my pain. Because the medication in the pain pump is delivered directly to the spinal cord, my pain can be controlled with a much smaller dose than is needed with oral medication. The goal of a drug pump is to better control my symptoms and to reduce oral medications.
I don’t have the permanent pump yet. This is the trial to make sure that it will work. It is pumping medicine into my spine all of the time so I will get more relief.
Basically what they did on Wednesday is put a catheter into my spinal cord. It is sticking out through my back and I have to carry the actual pump in a bag at all times. I will have to go back to Dallas tomorrow (Friday) to see if the medication dosage needs adjustment and then I will have to go back to Dallas next Wednesday to have the catheter pulled out and then we’ll evaluate if it was successful. If we feel like it was successful, I will have the permanent device placed in as soon as possible. I probably won’t have the permanent device put in until September because of my trip to Maryland to take care of my pancreas. Once I come home from Maryland, I will have surgery to put this pain pump in if the trial works.
So far I feel like it is working somewhat. I am in quite a bit of pain from the actual surgery. My back hurts and my legs hurt and I have had a headache because its in my spine. BUT the good news is that the pancreas pain and the fibromyalgia and chronic pain that I have had for 12 years seems to be a little bit better. I am having a hard time differentiating between the pains because I am hurting so bad from the surgery. I do have a lot of hope, though because some of the pain is lessened, I think.
I have an appointment tomorrow to see if my dosage needs to be adjusted. We will see what they say.
I can’t take a shower or bath for a week because they don’t want the area to get infection, so it’s sponge baths for me…gross. And I really can’t do much because I literally have a bag to carry everywhere and a tube sticking out of my back. I also have been feeding on my feeding tube so I have that bag to carry as well. I feel like a bag lady, carrying around all of these bags everywhere. I am trying to stay in one place and get comfortable but it’s been kind of hard to get comfortable. I am hoping to just rest until it gets pulled out next week. We will have to decide then whether to get the real pump or not.
Thank you for your prayers. These are big decisions. I really appreciate you all and love you lots.
I know I need to call some of you, and I will soon. I have been in and out of rest and sleep because it’s kind of hard to get comfortable. I promise to contact everyone when I feel a little better.
Love you all and I’ll keep you updated.
Ami