My Spine

The good news is the ghosts have left the building even without the exorcism or Earl has forgotten that he is afraid of the hallway. Either way he is roaming about as if the hall never presented any kind of threat or menace in his canine life. Do over. Maybe he's drinking a lot and has blacked out the past few days. Who the hell knows. The dog's name is Earl.

In other news, I went back to the orthopedic doctor today. Back to is sort of a misnomer, I think, since I originally saw this guy August 30 and it's taken this long for the insurance to give me the big okey doke to have my follow up appointment. It's been a super chouette day because yesterday I must have pulled the muscles in my back so today my lower back keeps cramping up, which has forced me to take a muscle relaxer and codeine so that I can try to decompress in order to be able to function somewhat normally tomorrow. (If this post degenerates into incomprehensible mutter, you will know why.) Normally when my back hurts I tell the kids, je suis vieille to which the very kind students reply, sometimes even emphatically, tu n'es pas vieille, but today I was forced to say, je suis super vieille and then hobble wherever I was going to go which, as usual, was not very far. Revenons à nos moutons, the doctor looked at my new x-ray that I had done and said "You need surgery." A lumbar discectomy (or diskectomy according to the 'girl' who came to have me sign paperwork) and fusion. This would involve taking out the collapsed disc, doing blah blah blah, inserting a cadaver disc and blah blah blah putting in some screws. I would be off work for six weeks. Able to drive after 2-3 weeks. Up and walking the next day. And in the hospital two to three days. Back to running and jumping and hiking all over within six months. Bleuhg, sign here please.

Finally, at least a solution. I was beginning to think that I would never hear any kind of solution. Gretchen's husband Buddy hurt his back at the beginning of December and had surgery today and overcome with jealousy I started throwing out suggestions that people at work kick me in the back because I thought maybe workman's' comp would go faster than this escargot scramble. I did not, however, sign on the dotted line. I said, "I am not deciding today, fifteen minutes after I heard this that I am going to have back surgery at 35 years old. How bout no." Then I got a carsalesman pitch about the doctor's capabilities, "there's no one better, everyone is walking afterwards, he is he chief surgeon at the hospital." I said, "Yeah no. I'll get a second opinion on this thank you very much." Because Dr. Puri, does not look like Derek Sheperd or Dr. Webber, or heck, even the cute intern with the great eyes so I'm not sure about his qualifications to be Chief Surgeon. Additionally, we would still have to wait for the insurance to approve this adventure and at the rate they move, I could be 40 before they decided to make a decision on anything.