I will have a laminectomy on November 4^th. The surgeon will be fusing vertebrae L 3-5 which means he will drill through the presenting lamina bone to reach behind into the interior area. He saves the bone dust to fill in the hole later. The interior is where my discs should be cushioning between each vertebra. But they are not, resulting in bad arthritis. The discs are disintegrating, and one is bulging out causing pressure on a root nerve, which is responsible for much of my pain. This arthritis also allows one vertebra to slip back and forth over another which increases the inflammatory pain with the slightest movement in the wrong direction. The discs will be removed and I will have new titanium springs to replace them. I never imagined that I would be someone with double sets of metal in her spine. A metal cage will hold the three vertebrae in place. I am assured I will not lose too much range of motion and anyway, I am barely moving my back now.

            It is amazing to me that modern medicine can clearly see inside the human body to address this problem. It is further amazing that they now can fix it with only two small incisions on either side of my spine, which is why it is called Minimally Invasive Surgery. MIS it may be but having undergone my cervical surgery, I understand that while reducing the impact on healing cut muscles and nerves, MIS does not change the internal assault on the spine. I know it will be excruciatingly painful for a few days, and in a week’s time it will be tolerable with fewer and fewer painkillers. I am willing to trade my never-ending unstable back pain for a different temporary pain that should totally heal within a few months.

            At first, I had no idea how to time this operation against the reality of becoming a grandmother in late December. When I walked into my doctor’s office last week, he said that he had just gotten a cancellation for the 4^th and did I want it. I figured it was my sign to go for it, that the timing was as good as it could get. I should be fairly functional by Thanksgiving, and free of still anticipating a medical intervention after the baby is born. I can’t quite remember what it is like to be free of constant pain in that specific area in my back anymore. To deal with a pain that is always changing as it heals sounds like a wonderful alternative to me.

            I like my surgeon, I got cleared for my pre-operation testing yesterday, and I have a new primary care physician whose office is right next to my surgeon’s. They even like each other, which is a good feeling. I am confident the outcome will be successful and am practicing staying in the moment when I start to spin out into fear of further pain and “what ifs.”  

            I only need to stay in the hospital for one night. Kendal is the right place for me to pursue healing my body as best I can. The rehabilitation nursing staff is just down the hall from my room. As I need less medication and care to see that my wounds are healing, I should only be there a few days before I return home to my own room. My daughter, pregnant as she is, will confer with the doctor when I am in recovery from surgery at the nearby hospital. Back at Kendal she can visit with me when she is done teaching for the day just across from the Oberlin campus. I have many Kendal friends to look in on me. The nurses already know me, and physical therapists know me well and how my body works. I am entirely grateful to feel cared for in all these ways.

            My friends, near and far, shall also be with me in spirit and I am blessed.

8/4/19

Inflammation is caused by chemicals in your white blood cells rushing to the point of injury and pain. Emerging from your bone marrow, that puffy swelling around your recent knife cut while chopping vegetables, is courtesy of your immune system at work. It is there to protect you as your cut heals. Because my pain is from a long term accumulative compression of my spinal cord, my immune system has been on the job 24/7 for years. It is a chronic pain condition, not an acute one. The inflammation never lets up and only increases my pain to red hot acute sensations that radiate throughout the length of the nerve pathways involved.

My neurologist knows all about this. When I saw her last week, she put me on a week of oral steroids to bring me some relief before I see the surgeon on the 14th of this month. One effect of steroids is to reduce inflammation. She knew that I am not a fan of drugs but I readily agreed to take them. Ice packs, Ibuprofen and herbs would only take me so far, and I knew my body needed help. Steroids affect us all differently. In the early days of my MS diagnosis, steroids were the only drugs available at that time to halt inflammation in the MS brain. 

One neurologist put me on three days of intravenous Solumedrol which was a standard procedure. I felt so exhausted on a systemic level from the MS exacerbation I was experiencing, and was so overwhelmed with the unknowns of this disease, I agreed to sit in a room in the local hospital hooked up to an IV drip for several hours each day. After I came home, I felt more and more jittery, anxious, and agitated. I remember swatting Richard’s hand away in an irrational rage that he dared to help me out of the car. I felt like an angry empty paper bag.

This time, it is just the right dosage and amount to begin to soothe my mini lava flows of pain. It is not all gone, but it is much more manageable. Pain is not running my life and that is a huge relief. Meanwhile, aside from feeling a little too buzzed to sleep well, I am given another opportunity to explore my pain now that I have some distance from it. “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional,” arises once more as an invitation. My pain is real but how I choose to deal with it can either create or release the emotional and psychological burden that is quick to attach itself to my experience. Most of my suffering, now and in the past seems to be based in the strong belief that; “This is wrong and should not be happening to me.” 

Opening to hold my body in love, injured exactly as it is, brought me to remembering the Japanese art of Kintsukuroi. Broken pottery is reassembled with lacquer containing gold, silver, or platinum powder. The resulting object shines along the cracks with exquisite beauty. That which is broken is made whole, the new and the old, the damaged and the resplendent, are indistinguishable as separate states.

When I can love myself in all my broken human ways, the cracks are filled in and made whole with soft shining light. It is humbling and I am given a meaning for my suffering, which in itself is a rediscovery of wholeness and health.