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Tha knife
By briantologist | January 22, 2005
All right, Internets, let’s have a talk.
I know I’ve been more about the humorous pictures of other people’s brothers-in-law lately than about the intense personal reflections you’ve come to not expect of me. This is either by design or not; I haven’t figured that out yet, and probably won’t bother to.
At any rate, here’s a vaguely personal thing on the horizon. Soon, specifically on the morning of February 1, the father of a former co-worker of mine* will use incredibly advanced tools to cut open my lower back and scrape some crap out of my spinal area.
This crap came from the second cartilage-y disc up from the bottom of my spinal column. Said disc decided it had fucking had enough — it’s unclear whether this was due to the stress my gut’s been putting on it, the stress of moving a bunch of office furniture several months ago, or a combination of the two. Said disc decided it would rupture, sending the spongy stuff that’s supposed to stay inside any self-respecting disc squirting out directly into the first thing it could find.
The first thing the disc crap found was my spinal cord, specifically the spot where my left sciatic nerve comes out, and being largely untrained in how to conduct itself outside a vertebral disc, the disc crap immediately began misbehaving, in this case by pestering my sciatic nerve to the point where sometimes I couldn’t stand up from the pain. Modern science responded by providing me with quality painkillers, which, y’know, are nice, but they end, is the thing, and then you either need to take more painkillers until you become addicted to them and have to engage in a heroic battle with celebrity addiction, or else you have back surgery, which is what I’ve decided to do.
I do not make this decision lightly, except in a way I do, because look: Medical science has been happening and advancing way longer than I’ve been alive, and though that didn’t mean much back in the Middle Ages, when the best advances one could hope for in 29 years was an improvement in leech quality, these days it counts for quite a lot. They got cameras and shit now. Tiny cameras. If nothing else, this means they can clearly see, even record for posterity, the moment they sever your spinal cord and leave you crapping through a bag in the side of your stomach for the rest of your life.
All of which is to say that I think I’m in good hands, and between you and me, Internets, I’m kind of looking forward to spending two weeks drugged on the couch while I recover from this. I’m hoping I get addicted to a soap opera. I’m also kind of hoping the kitties finally take the next psychological step, and adopt me as one of their own. I may need to eat some cat food on all fours and crap in the litter box a couple of times to get them to trust me, but hey, I’ll be homebound and on drugs. No problem there.
So that’s happening. Discuss. Or don’t.
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* — I should probably note here that the father of my former co-worker is, in fact, a neurosurgeon, and not just a guy with a sterile garage and some microsurgical tools.
Topics: Baffled Mutterings | 10 Comments »
January 22nd, 2005 at 11:02 am
Good to know you’re not just going “the cleanest garage in town” for your disc-o-rama.
I think that being prone and not moving to much will go a long way with the cats–my most skittish cat loves me the most when I move the least.
Sarah (linked over from Suburban Bliss)
January 22nd, 2005 at 11:44 am
“Hi, everybody!”
“Hi, Doctor Nick!”
Seriously, as someone who has never met you, and nonetheless enjoys reading your blog, good luck, and may you avail yourself of the finest robot leeches medical science can provide.
January 22nd, 2005 at 11:45 am
God bless the leeches, and the fine work they do.
January 22nd, 2005 at 1:43 pm
Wow. Hopefully, this will make your back love you again.
January 22nd, 2005 at 2:05 pm
so…as the world turns has this whole affair going on…between Holden and his cousin’s ex-wife..well they weren’t really married since the cousin had amnesia..
on y&r malcolm is demanding a paternity test and phyllis is dressing up like a huge ass reporter.
guiding light has harley on trial for murder but beth really did it
on all my children who knows…I only know CBS
here’s to getting hooked to soaps,,,,they somehow seem bearable on drugs.
good luck!
January 22nd, 2005 at 2:40 pm
My husband had back surgery years ago due to something REALLY STUPID he did. We won’t discuss the really stupid thing, but the surgery he needed was extensive. The surgeons took part of his hip and a flaoating rib and some fractured bone pieces and fused them together to reconstruct his spine. And they put some metal rods in there for good measure. Did I mention they collapsed his lung to do the surgery and then re-inflated it afterward?
Neat, huh? Anyway, the point is, my husband is fine now.
They’ll fix you up. Neurosurgeons are smart guys.
Good luck with everything and enjoy bonding with the cats.
January 22nd, 2005 at 2:57 pm
it sounds really scary, as surgery generally is, but also much less scary than celebrity re-hab. or being in pain a few months down the line, when your physical and mental support will be especially needed. it’s great that things have lined up so that you can get this taken care of now… and i hope that it goes well.
remember to expect the worst, so as to be pleasantly surprised.
January 22nd, 2005 at 4:12 pm
Man, lemme tellya, having heard multiple horror stories of backbone fusions and the months upon months upon months of recovery time that inevitably follows them, I feel like I’m getting off easy. Which perhaps mean I should quickly start expecting much worse, just to keep things balanced. Still, that collapsed/re-inflated lung thing takes the cake. That’s fucking fantastic. I mean, since he’s fine now and all.
Thanks for the well-wishes. And the soap schedules! That sounds, um, pretty addictive, actually. That goddamn murdering Beth.
January 23rd, 2005 at 9:30 am
The Soaps are a must! There’s nothing I want more than to be a housewife who irons the laundry while watching Soaps and making headway into her second pot of coffee.
I’m all about General Hospital and One Life to Live. It’s all about learning the names of the characters, Brian. Once you know who everyone is, they’re like part of your family. You’ll never go back to work.
January 25th, 2005 at 9:24 am
I went throught the whole disc thing about 6 years ago. I opted for the no-surgery plan but it took like three years to recover. If the pain had been much worse I would have had the surgery for sure.
Anyhoo, good luck, godspeed, and get as many Lortab refills as possible (save a few for later.)