BOHICA

Fuck me! I mean, seriously. Fuck me sideways. It's been 12 years since my last back surgery, and here I am with another herniated disk. I have absolutely no idea what happened or how I did it, but the MRI confirmed it. The neurosurgeon isn't too keen on operating. He said I would be looking at a fusion. This is something I certainly want to avoid at all costs. I am supposed to do physical therapy to see where things go. I am also looking at pain management, but due to numbness in my feet, the pain management doctor doesn't want to do anything until I get an EMG test done.

All-in-all things suck but I suppose that they could always be worse. Trekking on one day at a time.

One hell of a sneeze

I scared myself to death a couple days ago. I sneezed and felt something crack in my back. I thought for sure I had herniated yet another disk. Wouldn't that be special...

Luckily, so far anyway, I am not experiencing any unusual effects. Let's hope things stay that way.

Doing all right

It's been over a year since the surgery and I am not doing too badly.

The numbness in the back of my right leg is still there and at this point I don't think it will ever go away. The numbness in my left heel (result of the first back surgery) is still there after 20+ years so yeah, certain things will never be normal again.

I continue to avoid lifting heavy things and when I have to lift something I am very conscious of how I do it...lifting with my legs.

The Arachnoiditis seems to be in check, although I am experiencing a few new symptoms. The most recent one is what I can only describe as electric shocks shooting down the back of my right leg and going all the way down to the middle of my foot. When that happens my whole leg jerks and I have no control over it. This usually happens when I am resting. I hate to think what might happen if I ever experience this while driving or riding my bike. Let's not think about that.

The other one is this constant ache in both of my legs. This one started a few days ago. It's like that feeling one would get right before coming down with a flu but it's only in my legs.

It sucks getting old especially after having two back surgeries.

What a journey

It's been something like seven or eight weeks since the surgery and I am doing well. The first couple of weeks were tough but then things started to get better. I was back at work (part time) after three weeks and full time after six. Still have some healing to do but all-in-all I am happy to have gone through this.

The final countdown

Only 15 hours left before my scheduled surgery. I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous. I hope all goes well and I get to come home quickly. Wish me luck.

Less time than I thought

My surgery has been moved up to March 5th. That's next week! Holy crap! I am not ready mentally but I guess there isn't much I can do about that. Still, the sooner I get "repaired" the better.

March 12

Surgery D-Day has been set to March 12th. Three more weeks to go.