Well the 4th of April was the day they fused my lumbar section of the back which went pretty well seeing as less than 48 hours after I wheeled into the OR I was the way walking out the front door. And like the neck fusion it wasn’t bad until I sneezed, and then do you know where exactly they worked and try not to sneeze again, but it is spring, oh I forgot, it’s tick season. So along rolls the first part of May we started having pains. I mean the kind where your laying on couch and can’t roll over because it hurts. Lucky for me I had a follow-up appointment with the Neurological Surgeon in a week or so, I muttered, cussed, yelled OUCH and Ouie and few other ‘choice’ words until then. And par for the course the ride over (without Carley as appt was late afternoon and it is starting to get warm then and thought it was overcast when I left, the 2 hour drive can change a lot of weather) the texas caddy seats took a lot of the pain out the system, added by a few pain pills taken slightly sooner together than normal. When Dr came in the room I told him if he had done my back first first he would have never touched my neck. That seemed to get his attention rather quickly and as I described what was happening he almost but not quite smiled and said that didn’t have anything to do with the lumbar fusion but was in fact the sacroiliac joint. I said the what? So hepoke4d around and made it hurt and called in his scheduler to get in touch with VA and get the ‘shot’ to block the pain signal and inject some pain meds in the region to rule out it was the problem. AND THEN. He tried to help me up off the table and about 8 inches off the table ‘we’ hit the exact bad spot and did I scream. Several people came running and Dr said tell the VA he’s definitely gonna need fusion as soon as possible. As we waited for pain to get back a dull roar he explained why it happened (originally planned to talk about with me sitting in chair)- short version is the neck/lumbar damage had let the spine lower itself slowly over time and ruin the joint and then when the neck fusion and lumbar fusion with the plates and cages and mega screws put things back where they were supposed to be, when the lumbar started to actually fuse the joint and pulled things up, the sacroiliac joint came back up to spot that had NERVES. So between two nurse and the Dr, they finally got me off the table and upright. at which point I hobbled to truck and drove home without a run through Sam’s even! – might be a first there. The NEXT afternoon (Thursday) the scheduler gal called and said VA had approved both shot and surgery and THE SHOT was scheduled for next afternoon! talk about burning up air time trying to find someone not busy to drive me home after getting poked. ps. sacroiliac joint fusion is June 20th, and yes the shot is doing it’s thing as promised…this will be third spinal fusion surgery in 150 days…us old war horses do break down, but at least they don’t take us out behind the barn anymore.
I haven’t much faith in a Blackout Day doing a thing for us internet users, and if some folks think any senator is gonna change how they vote, they better look who pays the senators re-election bills… and as for ‘we the people’, well lets just say the common folk have no one in congress and won’t for quite a long time as it seems only law degrees qualify one for chance to run these days