Serious Thoughts

I'm feeling serious tonight. Serious as I consider what lies ahead in the next several months for me. Serious as I'm in really terrible pain right now...after two busy -two TOO busy days - when I didn't have enough time to keep the weight off of my spine by getting horizontal...so now the pain is crushing.

I visited my pain management doctor today...He looked at my MRI and commented "You have a lot going on here." And showed me numerous herniations and areas where my nerves and spinal cord are being compressed by the arthritis. He asked me what the surgeon had told me. I told him that when I saw the surgeon in July, he told me I needed both cervical and lumbar surgery but that he wouldn't touch me for six months, because I was just getting over a major drug resisitant infection I'd picked up during my hip replacement last May. He had given this asseessment based on an MRI done in 2007...and he hadn't seen this latest aberration of normalcy. I was supposed to see him this coming Wednesday to discuss these next steps with him. My plan is to have the pain doctor attempt to gain access to my spinal cord with an injection that can help to relieve the pain I'm in...but other doctors have tried this - even years ago- without any success...The spine is in too bad a shape to get a needle in.

However this doctor thinks that maybe he can do it. I will let him try. Failing that, surgery is my only option. And I think that the cervical surgery is inevitable in either case because they cannot really anesthetize the neck because it would cause paralysis of the respiratory system among other things.

AND I still need to get my other hip replaced.

Next year is definitely going to take the cake for all time lousy years. And I shudder to think of what complications probably will crop up....Infection, asthma, dangerously low sodium levels...Never mind the fact that general anesthesia leaves me confused and hallucinating for weeks afterwards....What happens if Idon' t recover from that confusion?? It happens.

I am trying to still my mind and steer it away from all of these variables and possibilities. I am trying not to ask myself what the chances of me coming through these three surgeries unscathed is...because I really think it is small and unlikely.

I've worked so hard to get strong. To lose weight and get strong...to build up my respiratory endurance...Will that save me?? Or will it simply not matter and I will lose all that I had gained? Do I have the energy and willpower to fight back THREE MORE TIMES??

On the other hand, what if I simply decide not to risk it; not to go for the one chance of having a little more quality time in my life? Not to try to reduce the pain? The pain will increase. And so will the limitations. Can I deal with that? Honestly, I don't think so. It would really mean giving up all semblance of having a normal life and probably just staying here in my bed. It would mean constant horrific pain...even worse than now.

No, I have to give it a shot. And I have to ask God,that if something goes wrong, if there will be a problem from which I will not recover, to just take me ...to end this misery....And then to trust in His mercy. And I think that a DNR is definitely in order. I do not want to be resuscitated should something happen. Or at least I need to get a living will in line....so that I have some control over how heroic the measures can be to try to salvage this life of questionable quality and purpose.

Yes, I am feeling serious tonight.
And I think it is with good reason.