So, How Was the Surgeon You Ask?

Weird. That's how the whole surgery consult was. 

Freaking weird.

They called my name and we went back into the innards of the Spine Institute. They checked my height and weight (at which point Ernie stepped out into the hallway....good GOD I love that man) and led us into the doctor's office. The office was packed to the gills...on every wall and shelf....with Star Trek memorabilia. A shelf filled with hundreds of little Star Trek figures.....Star Trek this and Star Trek that.....complete with a full size figure of Spock on the inside of the door.

The doctor came in and somehow the Star Trek all made sense.

I wish I could adequately described it but sometimes I am less articulate than other times...and I don't have the words.

I left unsettled and feeling unsure about what to do. Yesterday we got our copy of his dictation regarding the consult. Ernie and I sat in the front yard and started a fire in the firepit while we talked. I finally realized the feeling I have about this is that somehow having surgery is taking the easy way out. Reading over his comments though, and thinking it through, I began to feel a little differently.

He said that doing nothing would not lead to a wheelchair or paralysis, that it could stabilize and stay as it is or it could continue to deteriorate. He said that normally he gives the surgery about a 80% success rate; given that the injections did not help me he said he would lower it to 70%. He said of course that the other options are physical therapy (which the doctor I saw previously said she doesn't think helps) or pain pills or heat or cold or whatever. Losing weight would not help the condition but could help me be more active. I think it was thinking about being more active that kinda got me. I miss being able to walk through Allerton with the guys. I can walk a little ways, and some days are better than others, but I hate not being able to really  take a walk. At the beach this summer I stayed in one area mostly because even the walk to the beach was sometimes difficult.

The surgery would be a laminectomy; I'd be in the hospital over night and it would take six weeks or so to recover.

I'm thinking about it.