6 weeks to 4 weeks?

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I took some time to get a physiotherapist who does house visit to treat my mum, during the two-week period before the next appointment with Dr Tan. Homage had, unfortunately, stopped providing services to the public (only to institution) and the therapist that we hired from them for mum previously had already moved to Ipoh.

After a few enquiries, the first one that got back to me was Spine Joint & Muscle Solutions Physiotherapy, the physio centre that my dad went to. Towards the end of his life, we also got therapists from them to treat dad at home. My sister also underwent therapy with them previously.

They assigned Nisha to my mum. Since it was on short notice, we had limited choices of suitable time and so ended compromised by accepting a 12pm slot. Over the course of 5 sessions (the 5th was after the next appointment with the orthopaedic), there is gradual improvement in pain for my mum. The very session was mostly Nisha trying to stretch and loosen the lower back muscles. Later, she gradually introduced exercise. One notable improvement was that after the 5th session, for the first time in more than 5 weeks, mum could sleep on her left side without having pain in both her legs. She was so happy about it :)

Meanwhile, my mum, sisters and I on a whole lean towards surgery, conditioned upon a few things. The main points are that it's treating the cause (medicine + physio merely treat the symptoms), it's better to get it done now rather than when mum is older, and that the surgery is minimally invasive (keyhole surgery).

During the follow-up appointment with Dr Tan:

(1) His usual practice is let patients try out 1.5 months of medicine + physio before considering surgery. There were patients who felt much better and thus forwent surgery. However, since we were keen on surgery, he shortened it to 4 weeks i.e. another 2 more weeks.

(2) Increased painkiller dosage. Take Celebrex only when needed i.e. high pain score. Mum's swollen feet could be due to Celebrex.

(3) The medicine isn't harmful to kidney. At least one of mum's kidney is slight smaller than normal.

(4) 90% chance that mum can walk after surgery. The other 10% will not worsen current condition.

(5) Proposed surgery:

Keyhole surgery via the abdomen to insert a 'cage' (red). From the back, the old rod is removed, a new screw is inserted (the top dark blue) and a new longer rod is placed to connect the two old screws (light blue) and the new one. The old screws will also be replaced if they are not compatible with the new rod.

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