Hi Gang!!!
Guess who’s back?? If you guessed “Woodsy’s” you are correct and I must say that it is GREAT to be here!!
Ok – so this isn’t your average/normal, run of the mill “Woodsy Report” but hey, who ever said that a Woodsy Report was average/normal?
First off I would like to take a minute and thank Young Ted for posting the information about me! THANKS TED!! During one of our phone conversations Ted told me that MANY of you were asking how I have been doing. That is when I asked him to please let folks know what is going on with my upcoming surgery and such…. Ted, in his usual way, took the ball and ran with it!!
I now need to say THANK YOU to EVERYONE for the well wishing! Your concern/prayers are ALWAYS appreciated!
Ted, I even received a snail mail from “Placelast” all the way out in California wishing me well! What an encouragement you folks are!! John, if you are reading this, your letter was a great encouragement to me! If you ever get a chance to come out here and ride, I promise you a trail adventure you will NEVER forget!! You may never be seen again in California but, none the less, you will never forget it either!!
Ok, here is the trail report from the horse’s mouth:
In November of last year I had the choice of having deer hooves come thru my car window or hitting a tree. I chose the tree and then my troubles began. What 43 years of HARD dirt bikin, hare scrambling, motocrossing could not do, hitting a tree with a CAR did!!
This is TRULY amazing as I have not always ridden the slower pace that I have been accustomed to the last 15 years. To put it bluntly, I was VERY hard on my body back then!! When I was actually riding competition I would ride 10 to 12 hours per day HARD to stay in shape. Facing the gang from Lake Cycle with riders like Ricky Sharphorn and Hank Rezny as well as Chuck Davis, Micky Ludky and lots of other REALLY good riders of that era was just cause for this lifestyle – I LOVED to win! I was single back then and usually wore a bike out in a year – those Elsinore’s were TOUGH but not that tough!! I stopped racing in 76 due to some political injustice in the system and never went back. I didn’t stop riding though, I have been an AVID dirt and street rider all the way up until November of last year!! NEVER IN THE HOSPITAL BEFORE THIS (Knock on wood sy’s head)!!
I wanted to tell you folks this because I am sick and tired of people blaming dirtbikes for injuries and the continuing battle that is being fought over whether or not biking is safe/and should be outlawed for this cause! NO – MY INJURY IS NOT BIKE RELATED!!!!
Of course you can get hurt doing ANYTHING!! In the “skilled trades” it is a known fact that a 2nd year apprentice is the most dangerous person on the planet. This is because he/she has just enough knowledge to really injure someone and has not yet learned humility nor found the GREAT lessons to be found in not always being number 1. IMHO, biking is the same!
When the deer feet hit my windshield I ducked down behind the dash board toward the center of the car, slammed on the skidders, slid to the right side and contacted the tree. Due to my body angle my seatbelt/shoulder strap did a lot of damage to my shoulder and lower back.
The doctors in the ER room did an Xray and found nothing critical and sent me home – telling me that if I had major pain to come back and I would get an MRI. A few days later and I was back for the MRI!!
A Neurosurgeon found the damage and immediately put me into Physical Therapy. He said he had to follow protocol for insurance reasons but I would probably end up with surgery before it was over! He told me at the time to continue life as normal as possible (he had NO idea what normal meant for me :) ) and live on pain meds until we got to the bottom of the issue. After my PT time was up I went on to steroid injections. The injections helped a little but it didn’t last. Finally, the time came when surgery was imminent. The Neuro team at Hackley Hospital came up with a plan of action that included removing the damaged bone in the L5-S1 area and replacing it with Pedicle Screws and Rods. Then removing the ruptured disc and replacing it with a Titanium cage and a bone graph (2 surgeries). Later the idea of using a BMP implant with the Ti cage came up and now we are at 1 surgery of around 5/7 hours. I could have gone right into this surgery back in April but decided to wait until I got a second opinion.
Young Ted sent me some info that his wife Connie (bless him and Connie) had found and I was onward to the second opinion. The info contained words about a study being done on a not yet accepted artificial disc called the “Charite”. I contacted the people in Chicago (about 45 minutes from Ted’s home – I still think he was stacking the deck to get me down there where he could ride past my window on INCA and wave at an injured Woodsy) doing the study and sent them ALL my medical info for evaluation. I just heard back from them and was told that I am not a candidate because of the severity of my damaged spine.
The true blessing of having caring people like Ted and Connie covering your back side (pun intended - you knew that was coming Father Nelson :) ) continues in this paragraph. Everyone who has ever been thru any sort of surgery knows that CONFIDENCE in your surgeon and the resulting POSITIVE attitude go a long way in seeing a good outcome. I have been in bikes ALL my life and know bikes pretty well. I can usually tell a BSer from a true biker instantly but when it comes to Doctors – I might as well be leading a group of riders home from Boon cause I am just as LOST!!! My concern in this area was totally settled because of these people that I had contacted as a result of Teds info! They told me that my Doctor was right on target with the Ti Implant he wanted to do. They said the Ti/BMP was VERY new technology and my L5-S1 injury would be best served with it for sure! They also said that after this fusion had taken place I would still be a very good candidate for an artificial disc at L3-L4 giving me a very functional spine as a result!! SOUNDS GREAT!!
After hearing from the folks in Chicago I went ahead and scheduled the surgery here in Muskegon. The date for the actual surgery is June 22nd with some more Pre-Op stuff being done on the 16th. I will know more about all of this after the 16th and will update you all then!!
I am not as tough of a character as Young Ted has painted me out to be. I am sorry to let him down, but I have been living on prescription pain killers as there are times that the sciatic nerve pain I have experienced has turned me into a jelly fish!! I received a letter from another person who suffers from some of the very same issues as I. She told me that she has been thru 3 child births and can honestly say that they were simple compared to the nerve pain she has experienced with her spinal damage. It was nice to hear this from her as sometimes it helps to have someone “from the fold” put it all into perspective. I still dont think I would enjoy giving birth though :)
Oh yea, I promised pictures with this report.. This first pic is of a pretty good section of my spine. I post it just to give everyone an idea of what a functional spine should look like on an MRI. Notice the lighter colored square blocks – these are bone vertebra, the darker space in-between them are the discs..
The second picture is of my L5-S1. It is the joint directly below the visibly good joint. This is going to receive the new hardware. This is also where all my pain and numbness (I have actually fallen over because of the numbness – really a weird feeling!!) is coming from.
Guess who’s back?? If you guessed “Woodsy’s” you are correct and I must say that it is GREAT to be here!!
Ok – so this isn’t your average/normal, run of the mill “Woodsy Report” but hey, who ever said that a Woodsy Report was average/normal?
First off I would like to take a minute and thank Young Ted for posting the information about me! THANKS TED!! During one of our phone conversations Ted told me that MANY of you were asking how I have been doing. That is when I asked him to please let folks know what is going on with my upcoming surgery and such…. Ted, in his usual way, took the ball and ran with it!!
I now need to say THANK YOU to EVERYONE for the well wishing! Your concern/prayers are ALWAYS appreciated!
Ted, I even received a snail mail from “Placelast” all the way out in California wishing me well! What an encouragement you folks are!! John, if you are reading this, your letter was a great encouragement to me! If you ever get a chance to come out here and ride, I promise you a trail adventure you will NEVER forget!! You may never be seen again in California but, none the less, you will never forget it either!!
Ok, here is the trail report from the horse’s mouth:
In November of last year I had the choice of having deer hooves come thru my car window or hitting a tree. I chose the tree and then my troubles began. What 43 years of HARD dirt bikin, hare scrambling, motocrossing could not do, hitting a tree with a CAR did!!
This is TRULY amazing as I have not always ridden the slower pace that I have been accustomed to the last 15 years. To put it bluntly, I was VERY hard on my body back then!! When I was actually riding competition I would ride 10 to 12 hours per day HARD to stay in shape. Facing the gang from Lake Cycle with riders like Ricky Sharphorn and Hank Rezny as well as Chuck Davis, Micky Ludky and lots of other REALLY good riders of that era was just cause for this lifestyle – I LOVED to win! I was single back then and usually wore a bike out in a year – those Elsinore’s were TOUGH but not that tough!! I stopped racing in 76 due to some political injustice in the system and never went back. I didn’t stop riding though, I have been an AVID dirt and street rider all the way up until November of last year!! NEVER IN THE HOSPITAL BEFORE THIS (Knock on wood sy’s head)!!
I wanted to tell you folks this because I am sick and tired of people blaming dirtbikes for injuries and the continuing battle that is being fought over whether or not biking is safe/and should be outlawed for this cause! NO – MY INJURY IS NOT BIKE RELATED!!!!
Of course you can get hurt doing ANYTHING!! In the “skilled trades” it is a known fact that a 2nd year apprentice is the most dangerous person on the planet. This is because he/she has just enough knowledge to really injure someone and has not yet learned humility nor found the GREAT lessons to be found in not always being number 1. IMHO, biking is the same!
When the deer feet hit my windshield I ducked down behind the dash board toward the center of the car, slammed on the skidders, slid to the right side and contacted the tree. Due to my body angle my seatbelt/shoulder strap did a lot of damage to my shoulder and lower back.
The doctors in the ER room did an Xray and found nothing critical and sent me home – telling me that if I had major pain to come back and I would get an MRI. A few days later and I was back for the MRI!!
A Neurosurgeon found the damage and immediately put me into Physical Therapy. He said he had to follow protocol for insurance reasons but I would probably end up with surgery before it was over! He told me at the time to continue life as normal as possible (he had NO idea what normal meant for me :) ) and live on pain meds until we got to the bottom of the issue. After my PT time was up I went on to steroid injections. The injections helped a little but it didn’t last. Finally, the time came when surgery was imminent. The Neuro team at Hackley Hospital came up with a plan of action that included removing the damaged bone in the L5-S1 area and replacing it with Pedicle Screws and Rods. Then removing the ruptured disc and replacing it with a Titanium cage and a bone graph (2 surgeries). Later the idea of using a BMP implant with the Ti cage came up and now we are at 1 surgery of around 5/7 hours. I could have gone right into this surgery back in April but decided to wait until I got a second opinion.
Young Ted sent me some info that his wife Connie (bless him and Connie) had found and I was onward to the second opinion. The info contained words about a study being done on a not yet accepted artificial disc called the “Charite”. I contacted the people in Chicago (about 45 minutes from Ted’s home – I still think he was stacking the deck to get me down there where he could ride past my window on INCA and wave at an injured Woodsy) doing the study and sent them ALL my medical info for evaluation. I just heard back from them and was told that I am not a candidate because of the severity of my damaged spine.
The true blessing of having caring people like Ted and Connie covering your back side (pun intended - you knew that was coming Father Nelson :) ) continues in this paragraph. Everyone who has ever been thru any sort of surgery knows that CONFIDENCE in your surgeon and the resulting POSITIVE attitude go a long way in seeing a good outcome. I have been in bikes ALL my life and know bikes pretty well. I can usually tell a BSer from a true biker instantly but when it comes to Doctors – I might as well be leading a group of riders home from Boon cause I am just as LOST!!! My concern in this area was totally settled because of these people that I had contacted as a result of Teds info! They told me that my Doctor was right on target with the Ti Implant he wanted to do. They said the Ti/BMP was VERY new technology and my L5-S1 injury would be best served with it for sure! They also said that after this fusion had taken place I would still be a very good candidate for an artificial disc at L3-L4 giving me a very functional spine as a result!! SOUNDS GREAT!!
After hearing from the folks in Chicago I went ahead and scheduled the surgery here in Muskegon. The date for the actual surgery is June 22nd with some more Pre-Op stuff being done on the 16th. I will know more about all of this after the 16th and will update you all then!!
I am not as tough of a character as Young Ted has painted me out to be. I am sorry to let him down, but I have been living on prescription pain killers as there are times that the sciatic nerve pain I have experienced has turned me into a jelly fish!! I received a letter from another person who suffers from some of the very same issues as I. She told me that she has been thru 3 child births and can honestly say that they were simple compared to the nerve pain she has experienced with her spinal damage. It was nice to hear this from her as sometimes it helps to have someone “from the fold” put it all into perspective. I still dont think I would enjoy giving birth though :)
Oh yea, I promised pictures with this report.. This first pic is of a pretty good section of my spine. I post it just to give everyone an idea of what a functional spine should look like on an MRI. Notice the lighter colored square blocks – these are bone vertebra, the darker space in-between them are the discs..
The second picture is of my L5-S1. It is the joint directly below the visibly good joint. This is going to receive the new hardware. This is also where all my pain and numbness (I have actually fallen over because of the numbness – really a weird feeling!!) is coming from.
