I Fell, a Lot

 So, I had trouble walking for a while.  Three weeks ago, I fell getting into the tub.  I got up and out. Next day went to chiropractor and got xrays of neck. Looked "ok".  Made appointment for MRI scans of same to verify no hairline fractures and scheduled PT.

A week later, before the MRI, I fell again.  This time I couldn't get back up of the bathroom floor.  We called 911 and EMTs hauled me up onto a chair and I got to standing on my own from there.

5 days later I fell again and hit the back of my head on the shower tile.  Called 911 and they took me go the ER.  They did a CAT Scan on my skull and sent me home with a walker.

5:30 am the next morning I fell while using my walker. We called 911 and they hauled me up and put me in bed.

3 hours later, I had to urinate but could not stand, even with walker.  While rocking back and forth to remove underwear so I could pee into a trashcan, I fell off the bed to the floor.  A 911 call later and EMTs lifted me back to bed.

6 hours later, while friends were over to board game some and help us rearrange some furniture, I felt OK. I got up on my feet, put fresh clothes on, and used the walker to get into the bathroom. There, I fell again.

This time the EMTs said, "You've fallen 4 times in 24 hours. We cannot keep coming out to lift you. You need to go to a hospital."  I didn't want to, but I agreed.  At the hospital I had an mri of my lower back, which seemed to be the culprit. Talked with a neurosurgeon and scheduled surgery for two days later. He also wanted an mri of my neck to verify nothing strange there.  After he left, I remembered I'd just had one and asked my wife to bring the DVD with the copied images. She said it was already there so, long story short, we gave the neurosurgeon the DVD.

He came back a couple hours later and said the lower back surgery was off the table as my neck was in much worse shape.  I suffer from OPLL (look it up) where a ligament turns to bone over time and presses on my spinal cord.  It was doing so in multiple places.  April 14, 2 weeks and a day after the first fall, I had surgery on my neck including c-3, c4, c5, c6, and c7.

This past week I've been in the hospital, for post-op and sort things out.  Turns out a thing with my left leg was not because of OPLL but something else and hid amongst the symptoms. 

Tomorrow is a consultation with Orthopedics to sort that out and treatment. Once that is over, I will go to a rehab facility for intensive PT so I can get up from bed or a chair and so I can walk again. 

My insurance covers most of this (after the $5K deductible), but I don't have enough vacation time for all of it.  I will be on Short Term Disability for a couple weeks and that means only 60% of my salary during that time, which is not enough.  If anyone has ideas for donations and how to do that, I'd appreciate the help tremendously.