A Quandary

(Folks, I apologize for the layout problems in this post...Blogger evidently had a problem...Also please disregard the links below..I'm not sure what has happened here...perhaps the account was hacked.  Please try to ignore this mess...it was uncorrectable.)

My shoulder replacement surgery wold have been two weeks from yesterday.  However, after much thought and  many second thoughts--and after being warned by several of my doctors as to the extreme riskiness of this to my precarious health, yesterday afternoon I placed a call to my orthopedic surgeon and canceled -  not only this surgery, but all five surgeries which were pending.

Why? Well, I confess the level of pain that I'm already in in these deteriorated joints and the fact that that pain will surely increase -gives me pause. (OK, it's downright scary) ...However the endless stream of surgery, the post op pain, the post op mental confusion and possibility of permanent psychosis/confusion was pretty scary as well.  There is also the complication and difficulty of finding someone to come and help me manage during post op recovery.  My daughter was willing to do this, butt she is just now settling into her own home and beginning to get settled there as well--it could not have been easy for her to here for several weeks at a time.
 
But all this could have been--and would have been tackled--had it been truly beneficial and made a long term difference in my outcome.  But the truth is, it was a cat chasing its own tail.  For one thing: each of these surgeries woul                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           d have had to be repeated every 10-15 years as the artificial joints wore out.  But even that could have been done had the outcome been different.   But what would have been the outcome?  My spine is deteriorating at an alarming rate.  The pain in my spine is easily 5 times greater than it is in the other joints.  It is this pain which makes me want to find a bridge and jump off; and this pain which keeps me up at night; and it is this pain which makes it impossible for me to function normally.  And this pain cannot be corrected by surgery--And it cannot be  eliminated by medicine or by any other means short of an amazing miracle by God.  And it is this pain which is ultimately the most dangerous and which threatens to end my life.

So tell me folks, what would YOU do?

It is true that once these joints get impossibly destroyed, their pain will be intense.  And my resulting disability will be severe...and possibly, I will not be able to endure it and will go crying to the surgeon for him to repair the damage.  Hopefully at that point, the damage will still be correctable and my health will still permit it.  But for now, I have enough to manage with my back issues right now--I don't need the problems caused by undergoing major surgery...especially when there is nothing to be ultimately gained.

(Folks, I apologize for the layout problems in this post...Blogger evidently had a problem...Also please disregard the links below..I'm not sure what has happened here...perhaps the account was hacked.  Please try to ignore this mess...it was uncorrectable.)