Dr Omar was the 2nd back surgery consult we had for lumbar spinal fusion. The first surgeon did not go nearly as in depth as Dr Omar and Dr. Omar left us feeling completely confident in his knowledge and ability. We truly cannot recommend this doctor enough. And even before meeting Dr Omar, his assistant goes over your images with you and basically gives the same information so everyone in his office instills confidence from the start and if you miss something (it's a lot of info), you can catch it again when you talk with Dr. Omar so that's nice.
Then Dr. Omar finished with the complications and you leave your visit with him feeling like you know the good, the bad, the possibilities, the hopes and if you aren't questioning the whole thing, you're a stronger person than me, because it would be a NO for me.
What I learned:
You stay in the hospital for up to 4 days then go home or to rehab
In patient rehab can't be determined prior to the day of the surgery as the Dr or maybe it's the PT team that has to recommend it I guess, but we planned on it and we got it on day 5 after the surgery was completed.
There's a rehab at the same hospital the surgery is performed -Rotary- and this is the good rehab!! Then there's the overflow rehab off I-65. That's the run down, crappy rehab with super small rooms at SpringHill. We got the crappy rehab.
Apparently mental attitude is everything. If you have a natural propensity to be less positive, it's going to be really hard on you. If you are a naturally positive person, you'll do well and this is despite your physical strength or age or gender, etc.
The surgery went well and healing was coming along great.... but then the very neat (cosmetically perfect) little incision did not want to close at the base and exactly 1 month post surgery, we saw signs of infection on the incision.
IMPORTANT: if you are a chunky meatball or to be blunt ...if you have a fat a$$ that likes to spread your back apart when you sit down, do not get the pretty little incision. If you are obese in the least, Dr. Omar needs to Frankenstein stitch your back closed or else you are going to end up in emergency exploratory surgery with your back open again looking for spinal fluid leaks, infection, etc. and you'll end up with Frankenstein stitches anyway! Forget your vanity! Don't risk it if you are overweight!
We were mentally, physically and emotionally prepared for the 1 surgery. We were not prepared for #2 and months later things still are not great. Why? Because they were terrified (naturally) of the possibility of infection, she had to go on 2 types of antibiotics and we (family) literally became nursing staff when we were administering antibiotics 3x a day through a port in her arm pit and flushing the port. No one comes to your house and does this for you and it would be nearly impossible to do it by yourself. The antibiotics were in huge syringes and 1 was a ball that took an hour to administer. These are the things they don't tell you when they talk about complications. And eat all of those high powered antibiotics are doing to your body. It was a frickin' nightmare for everyone for another whole month and now 2 months later, she's back in the hospital for some complications from where the antibiotic port was and it was taken out a month ago! This nightmare will never end. read more
