Day 76 - This Is How It Works With A Halo

Day 76 and just four days to go. Four days! We've started a list of things to take with us, like a shirt that isn't slit down the back and has buttons for ease of dressing.

On the pain front, she's pretty much back to taking narcotics to sleep and some during the day for pain. It is not her neck like it was in the beginning, where the injury was. The pain now radiates from her back, around her shoulder blades and her arms. After a night of rest, it is better until about dark then the pain returns as bad as ever. Four more days.

Yesterday, she dropped something and bent down to pick it up. She said the room started spinning and she yelled for me. By the time I got to her, she was sitting in her chair but said she was dizzy. No idea what that was about. Probably something with the inner ear again.

This is in case anyone with a halo or supporting a halo user stumbles across this. This is how we wash her hair with a halo on. We are currently trying to decide when to wash her hair before the scan and halo removal. We've been doing that every two days since it is so exhausting for her and requires something for dizziness.

This is the chair setup we use so she can lay back with her head over the tub. Before this she was laying over the bed with her head suspended over it and pouring water from a pitcher over her. It was OK but took quite a while and I had to refill the pitcher multiple times. This takes about five minutes with her on her back. Wet, lather, rinse!


This is how we thread a towel through the back of the halo in order to keep the vest dry. It is best to use a smaller towel or an older towel that is not too thick as the extra bulk makes it difficult to not get it soaked.


This is the adapter I fashioned from a quick disconnect. It allows me to get the hot water to the faucet and then connect the hand shower head without having to wait for the water to reach a stable temperature.

Day 44 - Sleeping When You Can't Lay Down

With the sinus infection and the inner ear problems, Jan can't lay flat or the room spins so fast it makes her sick. The dizziness medication doesn't completely alleviate it so we can't wash her hair the usual way until that clears up. It may take 10 days for the antibiotic to resolve it. She did not have much of an appetite yesterday due to nausea but she did eat and take all her meds. She even ate some chicken and rice for supper.

Someone suggested shaving cream to wash her hair and then rinse it out with a damp washcloth. I'm going to be the guinea pig on this since I can always take a shower and if it makes hair fall out, at least I'm not wearing a halo and I can wear a cap! I'm waiting for my hair to dry to see if it looks nasty or just oily.

She is sticking her tongue out at me in this picture. She's been colder than usual, probably related to the infection although she never ran a fever. This is how we keep her warm at night.



The lift chair controls are under the blankets and I have another blanket draped over the halo to keep her head warm. There are also small heat packs you can't see on each side of her neck. Those muscles are always tight and always bothering her. The little TV tray to her left is where she keeps her cell phone, TV remote, a drink, extra medication and the gas logs remote if she gets too cold. She can't see any of it and has it laid out where she can find it by feel.

Despite the awkward sleeping arrangement, she slept pretty well last night on only one pain pill and one valium. That was the only pain pill all day! At least her stomach is settling down. She had bacon and waffles for breakfast and her blood sugar was only 96.

Anyone local to BG knows we got an ice storm overnight. Trees were down across the road and schools canceled. I just hope it all clears up by Thursday morning when Jan has her next appointment on day 46.

Day 34 - Modifications: Phase II

It is now almost five weeks of 12 down. The next appointment is at seven weeks, three days. We should be looking at the CT scan at the visit after that and, hopefully, the halo coming off. With any luck, she'll be out of it by Feb 26. Keep your fingers crossed.

After trying to find something that will fit over the halo-vest to look a little more dressy, I decided it was time to be a little more aggressive with the removal of nonfunctional fluff.

Here's the lamb's wool I removed from the vest. This is about the amount of fur I get off my dog when I shear her for the summer.



It really took a lot off her shoulders. She doesn't look so much like a linebacker. We haven't tried the clothes on yet but they can't fit any worse than they did before the modifications.

Here's the old picture for comparison with the modifications completed. She's not in a picture-taking mood so the look says it all. I'm not sure but I think the front bar (her left) on the right side of the picture has slipped down! So much for stabilization. A halo is only 75% effective and a hard collar is about 50% effective. I'm going to take another one in the same place, in the same position to make sure the bars are not shifting.

Jan's niece came down from Frankfort for the weekend and some good friends came to visit with pizza! She is pretty worn out tonight and went to bed pretty quickly at 10:00 PM.

Day 30 - Popular (Second) Opinion

Jan is in bed (the recliner) so I can finally get the results posted. We saw the doctor in Hermitage this afternoon for a second opinion. He was very nice and made a lot of sense. He actually talked to us in an intelligent way and didn't treat us as if we were stupid. He says the break is bad but is better than it could be.

This image identifies the different types of C2 odontoid fractures. Type I generally is only treated with a collar. Type II, where the whole tip is broken, fail to heal in 50% of cases.

Jan's break is a type III. A type III fracture is when the pin and the front of the vertebrae is broken off as a single piece. It is through the body of the vertebrae, which usually heal quite well. Her's is all the way down to the bottom. He says there is less than a 25% chance she'll need surgery. Much better than a type II.

The x-ray is a frame from Jan's ER CT scan. It is a slice viewed from the front. It goes farther through the body than the typical type III in the illustration. The doctor thinks that should lead to good union (healing) of the two parts.

Jan really liked him and wished we'd have gone to his hospital to begin with. I think it has something to do with him saying young people heal well.

He was shocked they didn't shave the rear pin sites, as indicated in the instructions for the vest. It keeps the chances of infection way down. He also didn't like the particular model of vest as they are more cumbersome than the ones he uses. Imagine that, $6,300 for the Yugo of halo-vests! You can buy a good used Honda for that kind of money.

In addition, he was surprised they didn't keep her 24 hours because you are supposed to check the screws in 24 hours. He said he would have kept her for a day for observation and then she and I would have been instructed on how to care for the pins. I guess that is the problem with teaching hospitals. If there is anything requiring surgery, she won't be having that at Bilkmore!

In the end, he says they did the proper things to protect her neck but they could have been a lot better about her treatment in general. He would have done much the same thing. He also said that it might have been treatable with just a collar but he would not have done it.

We probably could have gotten him to take the case as they asked us at check-in if we wanted that. The problem was his office hours are one day a week in Bowling Green and the next slot was in March! We could have continued to drive to Nashville to see him but he recommended we stay with Bilkmore. Jan was fine with that and I suppose I am, too. At least we have some valuable information and Bilkmore is the only place responsible should there be issues.

Now we come to Jan's next appointment at Bilkmore on Jan 23rd. The NP has ordered a CT scan to "make us feel better" about the treatment. The second opinion doctor says that the only reason to order a test is if you are going to do something or change treatment. He says there is no way they are going to take her out of the halo at six weeks so why do it. I agreed and Jan is considering canceling the appointment in favor of me going to the luncheon on the 23rd with my father and Tessa. She wants to push it to the next week with just an x-ray.

Instead, we are going to see if we can just get x-rays in Bowling Green to avoid the hassle at Bilkmore with the shuttle and the extended duration between imaging and NP appointment. For a 10:00 AM imaging appointment, we need to leave by 8:45 AM. The visit with the NP is at 12:30 PM and you just know she'll be running late. At the last appointment she was 30 minutes late and the visit lasted an hour and a half. Even if we make this one shorter, it will still be at least 2:00 PM before we are done and another hour to get home makes it an all day affair.

Day 23 - New Medication, New Modification

The timed release pain medication let her sleep from 10:00 PM last night until 5:00 AM this morning. She took a muscle relaxer for her neck cramps then and rested a bit more. She's up and around, feeling better.

She says I'm too negative about some of the stuff yesterday and that she is OK with the results so I should chill out. I am going to trim a bunch of the lamb's wool off of the parts of the vest liner that her body absolutely cannot contact, such as the back of the neck and the V in the front. This will let her have a little more sense of freedom from the scratchy wool. Due to the way this thing works, if she could touch those areas, it would NOT be working.

It is obvious that if this halo-vest is the pinnacle of medical technology for spine immobilization, the pinnacle isn't very high. It is also quite apparent that the people designing these things have never even attempted to put one on. It looks OK but the lining and design do not match up to the stated goal of the device once applied to a human form. For $6,300 you'd think they could at least make it a more custom fit. Perhaps Apple should get into medical devices. The margins are certainly excellent. BTW, the same halo-vest in other parts of the world is only $1,200 so that's a 500% mark up!

I've trimmed off some of the lamb's wool in the front. She says it feels a little less hot and smothering. That's a good sign! I'm going to work on the back at her next bath.

Here's a picture of the piece I cut out, only about a half inch wide but it made a big difference. I will get a new picture of her when she's ready that shows how the modification looks.

Here's the t-shirt mod in case any other halo wearers or halo support persons need a visual of the process. First is the normal shirt and second is the modified item with the slit back.