School Days!

Well school started here yesterday and it was Kaci's first day in second grade at a new school. She'd been going to private school but we decided to put her in public school, and we will see how it turns out! This school is the same one that I went to first grade in and it hasn't changed much since I went there, its weird...that it was uhhh 21 years ago that I was there! I am getting so old! Ughhh but I do have to complain about their system of picking up your kid! Of course, the first couple of weeks I was gonna walk her in, and walk her out and all that because its a new school. Well, apparently they want to keep as many parents out of the school as possible. They gave us a placard at registration with a number on it, that is specially assigned to your child. After school, all the kids gather in the gym...then you pull into their little circle drive, and the teachers are standing there with walkie-talkies and when they see your number they radio it into the teachers in the gym and then your kid is called and dismissed. Well of course, there are 1,847 cars in the circle drive so if you want to walk up to get your kid, you have to stand outside the front doors and hold your placard up so they can see, and wait for them to radio your kid out, like you are at an auction for cattle! And then (after seeing me parked in the handicap spot) they tell me that it would be blocked off from now on to control traffic. UGH! They assure me that its this crazy only because its the first week of school and people are getting used to their surroundings. We shall see...

Other than that, she is doing good and I think she got a good teacher...and of course, I think she is the cutest and best dressed in her class! Haha!

Then today, Lanie started Mothers Day Out...annnnnnnd I am the teacher in her class! Yes...Lanie is one of my little kids in my class...and she is supposed to be the other teachers responsibility, but Lanie doesn't get that. She wants to sit at my table, in my lap, she doesn't like the other kids hogging my attention that is so rightfully hers...lol. And I was all trying to get her to call me Ms. Staci..and that didn't work either, so she calls me Mama and some of the kids thought that was my actual name and they were calling me Mama too! Kinda funny! But Lanie did pretty good otherwise and I had a kind of a hard time with my back...there is A LOT of bending over when it comes to twelve two year olds! But I am hoping to get in the swing of things! Anyways, I am gonna sign off now...g'night!

Yay!! Summer's nearly done!!

I have to say yesterday was a good day. The reason it was a good day is because I got up to go to the doctor, went and took my two heathens to get allllll their 1,548,214 school supplies and allllll their school clothes, came home unloaded alllll that stuff, cleaned house, and helped Gary out in the yard...all PAIN FREE!!! That would have been out of the question a year ago...I would have ordered most Kaci's stuff online, and I was only cleaning house in 30-45 minute increments...so it was a total shock and relief when I did all that I did, and didn't bat an eye about the pain.

This morning, we did more yard work (or Gary did, should I say :] ) and I did all our laundry. We got the girls' pool blown back up and we watched them swim for a little bit. We called a fence company to come out and give us an estimate, and they are coming out Tuesday. I hope the money the insurance gave us is enough, because we are broke and can't pay anything extra! But I came up with an idea (and Gary loved it) about a different way to do the fence, rather than having it put up the same way it was..so I hope it works out.

I feel really stupid about griping a few days ago about what a bad day I was having, and then the very next morning getting the news of Dr. Shelokov's death. Life is full of ups and downs, but the loss of life is painful and unforgettable. A year from now, I won't remember my tire getting slashed and me being depressed and all that, but I will always remember the death of Dr. S. I am also very, VERY fortunate that Gary has kept his job in the oilfield when soooo many others were laid off. And people around the country, losing their jobs left and right, trying to hang on to everything they've got. I am so blessed, and my heart goes out to all the families struggling with job loss or major health issues.

I have to say too, that I get at least one email a day from someone who reads my blog and is suffering from scoliosis..or someone leaves comments for me, and it totally makes my day because people are reading it! I am also looking for a way to raise awareness in the public schools, with the scoliosis testing. They do the testing anyways, but I want to urge the parents of kids with possibly bad scoliosis to seek GOOD treatment to save them from the pain and anguish that I went through! My cousin Amanda (who got her Bachelors Degree and is now gonna be a teacher -- I am sooo proud of her) is going to see what I need to do, once she gets a job at a school.

Well, gonna sign off now...

Therefore, I take great pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, I AM STRONG.
-II Corinthians 12:10

Dr. Shelokov passes away

I am just beyond saddened by this news.

I received an email today from another patient of his, and she told me that he had passed away and then sent me a news article that reported the tragic news. Dr. Shelokov was my surgeon and he totally transformed my life and many others as well. He was a caring man, witty, and made you feel as if you were his only patient. I think about all the people he could have helped and it just makes me so sad, because he truly was one of the best out there. I think of all the people he has helped and what an impact he has made on their lives. Including mine.

He died of a heart attack. He was only 55. He leaves behind a wife and two young children.

I was originally supposed to have my surgery in September of this year. Next month. But I was in such bad shape that we moved the surgery up to January, and I thank God that Dr. S was the man with the hands that corrected my horrible curves. I think about Dr. Shelokov everyday, and now he will forever remain in my heart, as the man who took great care of me and gave me my life back.

I pray for his wife, children and family, his wonderful co-workers (Eric and Shaun) and for all the patients who were blessed enough to call him their doctor. I feel like I just lost a real close friend.

Dr. Shelokov will truly be missed.



MAN ON THE MOUNTAIN
Mountain biker dies of heart attack


By REILLY CAPPS
Writer
Published: Wednesday, August 5, 2009 5:19 AM CDT

A doctor who worked to set crooked spines straight died of an apparent heart attack while riding his mountain bike on Prospect Trail Monday afternoon.

Alexis Shelokov, 55, lived in Plano, Texas, most of the year, but had a house in Bachman Village. He was an orthopedic surgeon and the medical director of the Baylor Scoliosis Center in Plano.

Shelokov leaves behind his wife, Georgiana, who is a radiologist, and two children: a boy aged 13 and a girl aged 11, reported San Miguel County coroner Bob Dempsey.

Shelokov had already been to Telluride three times this summer, said his friend Ed Roufa, mostly to mountain bike, which he loved.

“It was a horrible accident,” said Roufa, “but he was doing what he loved to do.”

Ed Roufa was with Shelokov when he died. They had ridden the Prospect Trail almost to the bottom, and Shelokov was ecstatic.

“I can’t tell you the exclamations we were using as we were doing the downhill,” Roufa said. Then Shelokov suffered his attack.

EMTs arrived within minutes, Roufa said, but were unable to revive Shelokov.

Valley Lawn Funeral Home is handling the arrangements.

This is the third death on a bike in the area in less than a month. A visitor from Washington state died after a solo crash on Telluride Trail July 12, and local “Captain” Jack Carey died July 17 while road biking on Lizard Head Pass.

Shelokov grew up in Glenwood Springs, Roufa said, an avid skier and ice climber. He got his medical degree from the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in 1982. He had owned a home in Telluride for at least 12 years, Roufa said.

Shelokov straightened out the spines of adults and children with scoliosis, the malady of a crooked, S-shaped spinal column, and he received some raves from former patients on scoliosis.org and vitals.com, where doctors are rated.

“I love him,” wrote one woman.

Wrote another patient: “I have never met anyone so attentive, caring, compassionate and very professional and honest at the same time.”

In an interview on Ivanhoe.com, Shelokov talked about how patients with scoliosis would confide to him that they felt different, they felt deformed.

“There are times that I describe my practice as one of being a psychiatrist with a knife,” Shelokov said. “It’s an odd way to put it, but any time you’re doing a procedure that changes the way a person looks physically and the way they feel physically, you can’t do that effectively without dealing with the patient emotionally, dealing with them as a person rather than just a collection of bones.”

He said he was working to correct the misperception that there’s nothing to be done for adults with scoliosis. He told them: “You can be made straight.” A man who loved to ride his bike, Shelokov even helped a woman get on one. An online story from Baylor tells about a woman whose scoliosis got progressively worse as she grew older. Then, at age 31, she met with Shelokov, who told her there was help. After surgeons at Baylor fused five vertebrae in her lower back, she went out and bought a mountain bike. “And now that I’ve tried it,” she said, “I’ve fallen in love with the sport.”

It seems fitting that Shelokov would find a way to help other people get into the sport he loved.

"I've had better days..."

"In airports with rain delays,
Flat tires in traffic jams,
And anytime I've been damned,
I've had better days,
When the pain wouldn't go away,
And tears watering down my pride, yeah I've had better"

Thats the song that I listened to over and over today when I got off work. Ok so it wasn't the more horrible of days, but I am just down in the dumps anyways, so it seemed worse to me. I know other peoples problems pale in comparison to mine, but still...

I usually work Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursdays from about 8-5:30ish. Well, school registration fell on August 4th and 5th (today and tomorrow) and I had to go. I asked my boss if I could possibly get off a little early so I could register Kaci for school. Instead my boss had me go register Kaci this morning, and then go ahead and come to her house no later than 9:30. I was grateful that she was able to work her schedule around so I could do this. Anyways, so I get up and go register her and I am done by 8:40. I get out to my car, and my back tire is flat...completely. Of course, Gary is at work...my dads phone went straight to voicemail...I had no one else to call other than my granddad. I didn't want to have to call him, he is 72 and is facing a knee replacement surgery and I didn't want him to have to get down there and mess with it. But I had no choice. He shows up, and he lets me take his car to work so that I wouldn't be late, and he finished up on mine and took the tire to be fixed while I was at work. After work, I was to go get my car from him and give his back.

Anyways, so the flat tire just dampened the whole day. Then I get off work and I am going to get my car. I tell my grandma that I can't stay long because I gotta go get my girls. Well she tells me to come in, that she has to tell me something and they didn't tell me sooner because they didn't want to upset me at work. So I am thinking, "OMG someone died" I sit down and she tells me that my tire wasn't just flat, but it was SLASHED. Had two knife punctures in it. I just started bawling...its bad enough that Gary is gone all the time and I am by myself and I get lonely and all that...but then I find out my car is vandalized! Now I am not sure where it happened, because when I left the house, the tire was fine. We live about a mile from the school, when I got out at the school, the tire was fine. It was after I registered Kaci that it was flat. If it had been done at home, wouldn't it have gone flat by the time I had gotten to the school? So some random person walking in the school parking lot decided my tire needed a hole in it? UGH!!!

To top it off, we had a recent storm and it blew my back fence down completely...and my backyard is totally exposed and we live on a corner lot, so everyone can see my backyard. And I sleep alone at night and then my backyard is all out in the open now and then my tire gets slashed. It didn't help that I didn't get a good nights sleep last night, because I heard every noise and I probably got about 4 hours of broken sleep total. So I was already worn out when I woke up this morning. I could go on and on, but I will just shut up already.

I am gonna go take some pain meds and lay on my heating pad and rest and read and go to sleep!! I am wiped out. I hope tomorrow is a better day.

I can't find my ears!

Haha...these are the words of Lanie in the doctors office today. I had to take the girls for a well check-up and to get their shots current for school. During Lanie's examination, the doctor asked Lanie if she could look into her ears. Lanie says, "But I can't find my ears!" :] It was pretty cute. Thankfully, both my girls are healthy. Kaci is 48 inches tall and weighs 62 pounds, Lanie is 38 inches tall and weighs 30 pounds (little stringbean!) Then the nurse came in to do the shots, and they did Lanie first. Kaci witnessed this, and started crying along with Lanie. Then I told Kaci she had to get up on the table for hers, and she screamed and held on to the side of the table with all her might and I had to literally drag her out of the corner! I finally got her onto the table, and they had to call another nurse in to help me hold her down. Kaci is like thrashing around on the table, and the nurse straddles her legs and I am holding her arms, and goodness, Kaci is STRONG!! In fact, she was thrashing about so much, that she didn't even realize when the nurse poked her with the needle! She was still kicking and screaming when I told her the shot was over! LoL. But still, I just absolutely hate when its time to do shots. Thats the ONLY time my kids go to the doctor is when they need their shots, they are rarely sick, so they associate the doctor with pain! And I don't know what is worse. Kaci knew as soon as we pulled into the parking lot what we were there for. And she was scared. Lanie on the other hand, was innocently talking to me, asking "Where are we?" and I tell her the doctor, and she says "Medicine for rash?"...the last time Lanie was in the doctor was because of a diaper rash I couldn't get rid of. And as I laid her on the table, Lanie was still jovially talking and cutting up, and then the needle stuck her, and you could just see it in her eyes, the second the needle went in! UGH!! I hate it, and I get teary eyed every single time!

So after that two hour fiasco, I was drained! I paid the receptionist and then I had to go home and lay on my heating pad. I think that stress makes my back hurt more, or quicker or something, because I really didn't do anything else today other than the doctor visit. And it wasn't my back that hurt, it was my side again. Anyways so we are back home now...I took the girls to Target and got them a little something for having to get a shot, and Kaci suckered me out of getting a whole outfit! I swear, that child will bankrupt us!

Tomorrow it is back to work for me. I have 11 days left of work, and then school will start and I will start my new job at Mother's Day Out. I am gonna head to bed now...g'night!

Did wayyy too much today...

And now I am paying for it.

I did ALL the laundry, then took the shop-vac out of the garage and used it in Lanie's room...I swear, she lives like a hamster, and had crumbs everywhere that my regular vacuum wouldn't pick up. Then I cleaned the house, and did some stuff online and now I am officially wiped out. My back feels fine, its my side that hurts...I wish that would hurry and go away. Under my right rib cage, on the side, it hurts really bad when I do too much stuff in one day. My doc says its muscular and will go away in time. I sure hope so. Anyways, so I am off to bed, hopefully will get a good nights sleep..church is in the morning :] Goodnight!

My Surgery in a nutshell.

So I have been reading my past posts, and I am sooooo glad that I wrote all that I did leading up to the surgery. God I was such a baby about the little procedures before the surgery. Crying about a few needles and stuff...haha. The surgery itself is something I thought I would NEVER, EVER do, and here I am almost 7 months out of having it done. It is still so SURREAL. And I just posted the pictures of my back before and after the surgery and YUCK! The before ones are gross...sorry but they are lol. And another note...my waistline is not that small anymore (the one of my back one month post-op)...as you can imagine, you do lose weight during an ordeal like this. I lost weight before the surgery because of nerves, I couldn't eat. Then during the hospital stay, uhh, eating is not like the biggest thing on your agenda. Or it wasn't mine. When I got home, I didn't have much of an appetite, and that was because of the pain meds. Well the pain meds (the heavy, GOOD ones anyways lol) stopped, and I slowly put on weight. I am still smaller than I was a year ago, so thats good I guess. I wish my waistline were still that small though haha.

So here is a little synopsis of my surgery.

I will try and keep this as brief as I can lol.

I went in on January 15, at 5:30 AM, given the sedation stuff and then I woke up and the surgery was done...I was in surgery for 8 hours, and I woke up in ICU screaming from the pain. The anesthesiologist woke me from my sedation and was explaining to me about the pain pump that I could use. I can't explain the pain, as you can imagine, it was horrific. I was cussing at the nurses and they finally got the meds going and I was somewhat ok. On a sidenote, I believe that I was screaming because I was mainly scared to death. The last thing I remembered was lying in the little room talking to my family and the anesthesiolgist, and BOOM! There I was in a different room, stiff, groggy, in pain, with what seemed like thousands of nurses swarming around me, prepping me for my stay in ICU, I couldn't feel my legs it seemed, I mean, it was just horrifying to wake up in that state, you know? So yes, I was hurting immensely, but I think it had a lot to do with the atmosphere too...it was not fun at all.

The next day, they had me up and walking! I had been walking with my body off balance and crooked for 16 years, and then all of a sudden I need to walk with a straight spine and all my organs put back into place lol. It was very weird. I felt top heavy, like you feel heavy because of all the instrumentation inside. Or at least I did.

So I spent 7 days in the hospital, walking up and down the halls and being bugged every hour with nurses bringing me meds, or checking my BP or the respiratory therapists making me do the breathing thing. I didn't get a full nights sleep at all, not that I could anyways, I was in so much pain that I had to wake up every 3 hours to take pain medication.

On the 7th day, I was packed up and ready to go home, but a dreaded chest x-ray showed that I had fluid in my lungs and I had to go have a chest tube inserted. THAT was VERY painful. And added another 4 glorious days to my visit.

So I was in the hospital for a total of 11 days. I flew home, which was awful since I was in so much pain...I recovered at my grandma's house. She took care of my girls, got them to school, did homework, cooked, bath times, the whole nine...all while taking care of me too. Of course my granddad was there to help too. My husband was working 7 on and 7 off, so he helped when he could.

I didn't get a lot of visitors, I guess people got busy, forgot, whatever...I don't know. It was VERY hard laying in bed, having someone do everything else for me and my kids. I always did everything for everyone and sacrificing that was hard, and I cried a lot. My kids were afraid to touch me, scared they'd hurt me, and I was desperate to just hold and hug them. Kaci's class made me Get Well cards and that spruced my attitude up a little I got up and walked everyday and tried to get more independent each day.

I had to wear a brace any time that I was up and walking around. I started to drive about 4 weeks after the surgery, and that was weird because I couldn't move my neck to look around like I used to could. I'd take a shower and would be exhausted, I had a lot of days of thinking, "When am I gonna get better??" It was very very hard. But each day brought on a little more recovery.

I was able to actually go home to my house in March, my husband did EVERYTHING, which was big time because he never did anything before...we had major marital discord in the months leading up to the surgery and then the actual surgery like opened his eyes, and it changed my husband and I couldn't be happier.

Now...I am able to clean, cook, buy groceries, drive, walk, ANYTHING, without PAIN. But if I push myself too far, I will experience pain, but its nothing like it was before. I sleep better, I look better, my clothes look better because I don't have the rib hump anymore. I breathe better, except that during the surgery, they cut 4 inches off of 4 of my ribs to resection them (to remove the rib hump) and so if you've ever had a broken rib, you'll know what I am talking about. When I sneeze, inhale deeply, cough, it hurts in my ribs where they are still healing. Other than that...I am doing GREAT

I even took on a Nanny position for the summer, watching a total of 6 kids including mine, 3 days a week...I guess I was glutton for punishment haha. Nahh its really not that bad. Starting in August, when my Nanny job is over, I will start working at Crescent Parks Mothers Day Out. So there is my story...there is a lot more to it, and I tried to make it short and sweet, but I couldn't lol...sorry its so long!

Anyways, I will be trying to write more now that I am in the real world again, having the internet again haha :]

G,night...

Finally got the BEFORE and AFTER pics up!!

Well folks...here they are...me in all my glory. :]

This is my bare back, the night before surgery.


The ugly rib hump, night before surgery (thats my rig cage protruding because of the spine rotation)


This is AFTER, while in the hospital still...Look at how it looks like I lost like a ton of back fat when really it just got straightened and smoothed out like normal.


This is about one month post-op:


Here is a BEFORE x-ray:



Here is the AFTER x-ray....AMAZING!!!


And here is a SIDE view of all the instrumentation. Gory huh?? :]