Phil its wonderful to see you back again.  Thank the Lord 
that you are recovering so nicely.

Cairie
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Phil Scovell" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2009 2:02 AM
Subject: Update


Hello everybody.  Today I went to the doctor a little over a 
week after
spinal surgery.  He took out the 15 staples in the back of 
my neck and the
neck brace I have been wearing for nearly three weeks, he 
removed.  He had
originally said I would wear the neck brace for another 6 
weeks 24 hours a
day.  The day before Christmas, I went shopping with my 
daughter.  A day or
two after Christmas, I could not walk without assistance and 
I could not
feels the keys on the keyboard nor could I read or write 
Braille.  Yes, I
was freaked out.  I truly felt I was going home to be with 
the Lord as my
body slowly weakened day by day.  The spinal surgery, after 
the MRI revealed
the problem, was all in my neck both front and back.  My 
throat was opened
in the front to put in a titanium plate to fuse two vertebra 
together.  Then
I was turned over and the back of my neck opened to remove a 
disk and to
replace it with synthetic bone mass in order to relieve 
excessive spinal
compression on my spine.  I have a long 6 inch incision 
running down the
back of my head and down my neck.  No, it doesn't hurt.  In 
fact, other than
normal post surgical incisional discomfort, I have had no 
pain of any kind
in my body.  I also have an incision in the right front of 
my neck where
they made entrance in order to put the plate in place.  No, 
I cannot feel
the plate but the incision is still puffy and sticks out 
from my neck.  The
grandchildren think it is cool.  I am walking with the 
walker but I am
almost learning to walk all over again so I am sort of slow. 
Before
surgery, my upper torso felt as if it were balanced on a one 
legged stool.
In other words, I felt off balance and felt as if I would 
fall at any
second.  I did fall a couple of times before I finally went 
to the emergency
room and was admitted to the hospital.  Now my spine feels 
like it is
perfectly centered and balanced and I have no fear of 
falling but walking is
still slow.  I also am having physical therapy.  My hands 
are slowly
returning to normal but are tingly and somewhat numb but at 
least, though my
typing is slower now, I can feel the keys and I can read 
Braille a little
now, too.  I will write more later but to say the least, I 
was more
frightened than at any time of my life.  It was not anxiety 
type fear,
however, but just the fear of not knowing what was wrong. 
No, I was not
injured prior to surgery but the doctor said it was a 
degenerative thing
occurring over the last year and a half that finally got to 
the serious
stage of development.  Thank you very much for all your 
prayers and continue
to pray my hands return to normal.  I think it was the 
inability to use my
hands normally and to touch things with my fingers that was 
the most
frightening to me.  By the way, all my lower back pain and 
problems are
completely gone.  The doc said today that he believed it 
would take longer
for my hands to recover.  Yes, I learned some spiritual 
things and have an
idea I will be learning more as times passes.  I will share 
those things
soon but I just want to write and thank you guys for praying 
for me.  This
was very hard on all my family, too.  The surgery was 
scheduled for 7 hours
but turned out to be about five because everything went so 
well.

Phil.