Whoops! After hand-on-heart promising that I wouldn't become one of those blogs that whinged about the halo and then went quiet when they got the halo off... that's exactly what I did. My bad!
Suppose that's the good news-- breaking my back in three places and wearing a halo for three months has been nothing more than a blip. Lucky me.
You might want to hear about the final doctor appointment, three months after getting the halo off. It went as expected. Three hours of waiting for a five minute consult with a completely new doctor who did not get my sense of humour. He said I could basically do anything I wanted. I said, "Water sliding?" and he did not laugh. But then we were talking about other forms of exercise, and he said, "Just use your best judgement... actually, you went down the waterslide in the first place, so maybe don't trust your judgement" so HE GETS ME.
The X-ray involve me shifting my neck and shoulders into increasingly
weirder positions to determine the positioning of my vertebrae.
Everything looked good on the scan, so far as they can tell. There is a
chip of bone off one of the vertebrae which is hanging out all on it's
lonesome, but shouldn't cause any dramas. Overall the doctor was
cautiously not-displeased about my healing. He did say not to do any weightlifting that involve the thoracic part of my spine (so nothing above the head) for about six months, and that was mainly because any aches and pains they weren't sure if it would be because of the back injury, or me being a weakling.
Anyway, I don't have to go back to the doctor again, not in a month, not in six months, not in a year. I'm done. Hooray! He didn't even recommend any physio, and didn't seem phased when I admitted that I had been dodgy driving for weeks. Life is finally back to normal.
I still have to wait a few months to do any sort of weightlifting. In particular, I'm not allowed to do exercises that strain the spine, like squats, deadlifts or pullups. The doctor said it's because if I get sore, I won't be sure if it's the injury or just my weak muscles. I should be able to start (trying to and failing) pull-ups in September, but will probably consult with a physio before starting again.
I'm still continuing to build the muscles and flexibility in my neck. Left and right seem spot-on now, and people have commented that I've stopped moving with my entire torso. Great! I feel like 'Up' has fairly good range of movement now, especially if I take it slow-- it gets a bit of a twinge, but only momentarily and only at first. I still can't fully tuck my chin into my chest. No great loss. And when I move my head all around, it even sometimes cracks!
My recovery feels complete. Hopefully the only legacy of breaking my back in three places will be the numerous people who have told me they will never try a water slide.
