phone conversation with Dr. Nelson

I called Dr. Nelson this afternoon, and he called me back right away. I wanted to talk more about the fusion procedure. I asked him about the harvesting bone from a graft on the hip. He said that is not really done these days. Now, what he likes to do is try to conserve the bone which is "mulched" from the vertebrae and then add supplements such as Bone Morphogenic Protein (BMP) and/or collagen-like Demineralized Bone Matrix (DBM). Apparently these bio-materials are very good at stimulating bone growth, and the bone harvesting from the hip is therefore not needed.

I asked Dr. Nelson about recovery time, and he said that it can be variable from one person to the next, especially since everyone's pain level is different. He broke the recovery down to three stages:

1. acute recovery: 2-4 weeks, significant post-op pain and very low mobility
2. mid-range: 1-4 months, slower movement
3. long-range: 6-12 months, at which point you're as good as you're gonna get

I asked him about taking a three hour flight home for the holidays, and he said that was possible 2-4 weeks after the procedure, depending on how I was feeling. I asked how many two-level fusions he had performed, and he said a "couple hundred" with significantly more single-level. I asked how soon we could do this, and he said within a week or so. He said to just pick a week which would work, and he would schedule a day that week.

So, there we go. Am I really going to do this???