The incentive spirometer is a small device that measures how hard you are breathing and gives you a tool to help improve your deep breathing. If you have any other lung disease, such as asthma, the respiratory therapist may also use medications that are given through breathing treatments to help open the air pockets in the lungs. Any time surgery is performed, there is a risk of infection. An infection can be in the skin incision only, or it can spread deeper to involve the areas around the spinal cord and the vertebrae. It is less serious and easier to treat than the deeper infection.
Surgeons take every precaution to prevent infections.
You will probably be given antibiotics right before surgery - especially if bone graft, metal screws, or plates will be used for your surgery. This is to help reduce the risk of infection. If the surgical wound becomes red, hot, and swollen and does not heal, it may be infected. Infections will usually cause increasing pain. You may run a fever and have shaking chills.