Western Medicine for the Win

You better lose yourself in the music.
The moment, you own it, you better never let it go…
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime...

—Eminem, Lose Yourself

There is only one trip to the chiropractor left before D-day.  That's this afternoon.  I couldn't find any more dramatic letter than D… S day for surgery just doesn't have the same kick. As of yesterday I've been to the chiropractor 11 times.  I've been waiting until this week to make the final decision on whether or not to go under the knife. My criteria for recovery  had to include walking, running, jumping and falling. I'm walking fine…I'm up right, I can move pretty well. I can walk over obstacles, I can walk in the yard, I can walk up and down hills, I can walk on different surfaces and I can hit different points of inflection.

However I cannot run. I can pick up the pace as I walk but I'm still not breaking into a run or even a trot. And I'm far from jumping.  So I am a long way from anything I can even call recovery. Remember and this chiropractic care follows 2 weeks of impatient physical therapy which kept me in a wheelchair. As due diligence is called to the stand, I have done mine in every sense of the word. Two full months of conservative care…both conventional and unconventional.  Two rounds of direct epidural injections. A mountain of steroids and enough pharmacological intervention to kill a small horse…if taken all at once of course.

Also I can do none of this physical stuff without the cover of pain medication I am currently taking. I'm still on  600 mg of Gabapentin every 6 hours. 750 mg of Methocarbamol 6. hours. And the same with Tylenol. The only medication I have stopped taking is Motrin. I had to come off NSAIDs on Friday to prepare for surgery. 

Of all of the medications I believe the Gabapentin is having the most effect and in fact I believe had I reached these  levels earlier I would have been walking sooner.  I never reached  600 mg every 6 hours until the outpatient pain management doctor, the one who gave me the cortisone injections after I left Folsom, increased my dosage. He also gave me Tramadol to take if the pain increased after I came off the Motrin. So far I have not had to take the Tramadol.  If I miss a dose of the Gabapentin however the pain returns with a vengeance…it is in fact self critiquing when I miss the Gabapentin, so I know it's the primary actor.

I asked my insider informant, Deep Throat, if the progress I was making was sufficient to avoid surgery and if I should get another set of images ahead of surgery just to see if the chiropractor was making any progress with the mechanical issue freeing the impingement of L34 and L45 nerve roots. Deep Throat said he always makes the diagnosis in the clinical setting and basically described that if I'm still getting numbness down my leg the impingement is still there.  And at this point that has to be fixed by surgery. 

So friends I see no way out of avoiding the knife on Friday. I'm not afraid of the procedure at all, in fact I'm looking forward to it. Those of you who have been following along know that had the surgery been offered to me on 18 August,  due to the level of pain I was in, I would have gladly accepted. 

There's also no doubt in my mind if I were to come off of my medications entirely I would quickly return to that same level of pain I was in when I entered Attica on 17 August.  The practical magic of chiropractic has seemingly and magically lifted me from my wheelchair and put my belief in those  manipulations as always just temporary. They've created some space between my vertebrae because there's been less impingement on the the nerve roots but this condition is only temporary…once  gravity takes back over it's only a matter of time before the vertebrae drop back into an offending position. Should I continue with chiropractic I will be caught in the purgatory of weekly chiropractic care (Allison K). That is the grift of that community (Champ G). I'm not saying it doesn't work. I'm not saying many people do feel relief from the physical manipulations. I'm just saying that they seemingly must continue, indeed,  without end. Thus it is Western Medicine for the win (also Champ G).

I have completed all of my pre-op appointments and my interview with the surgical nurse. I've got a clean bill of health and I'm ready to meet the surgeon at 12:00 noon on the 17th.  A clean bill of health is defined as good blood work, a nice EKG result,  and an interview with the surgical nurse to describe how I've handled anesthesia in the past. Luckily I've come through two surgeries in the past 3 years…the emergency appendectomy in 2022 and my hernia surgery in 2024. No problem whatsoever with the anesthesia. Many already know that the hernia surgery created problems for me not because of the anesthesia but because I decided I was well four days following the procedure. I had elected open surgery and not the orthoscopic  fix.  That means they carved through three layers of muscle to reach the herniated area requiring the fix.  I didn't realize that it took weeks to recover rather than days from the orthoscopic remedy.

As for the discectomy on Friday if all goes as planned  the pain on my sciatic nerve bundle  will be gone immediately and I will only be suffering with the pain of the surgery and the recovery beyond cutting and drilling into my back. 

Believe it or not it's outpatient surgery. I'll be sent home directly after for recovery.  Deep Throat tells his patients they cannot lift 5 lb for at least 4 weeks. That will be my downfall.

Recovery is what I fear the most because I've been sitting there for exactly two months now and it's time for me to go do things and there's a lot of stuff I need to get done. I'm chomping at the bit to do shit and as soon as my leg pain is gone I'm going to want to get to it. I must keep reminding myself and hopefully people around me will continue to remind me,  I must not over do it. I don't want to fuck up the surgery because who knows what's in store if I  mess up in this department. As with my hernia surgery which I fucked up by traveling four days after I went under the knife…I'm going to do my best not to make that mistake again.  I've got one shot. I’m down to one surgical shot. I better own it. I better never let it go…this opportunity comes once in a lifetime, yo…