Well, what I was afraid of is what I got.
Can’t remember which LDS leader said it, but I know it’s what Job said, that which he feared the most is what happened.
The surgeon diagnosed me with degenerative disc disease. 12 out of my 23 discs are bulged, multiple impinging on my nerves, lots of stenosis… arthritis…
Basically, he said there’s no getting better. It’s just going to be managing it for the rest of my life, and how I want to do that. It’ll get worse and worse. Full stop.
Pain medication, injections, physical therapy, surgery, lifestyle changes.
Those are pretty much my options to try to manage it.
I’m grateful to know.
I’m going to get a second opinion, just because… I think that’s smart, and some of the things the surgeon said seemed incongruent with the reality of the condition, but perhaps I misunderstood, or perhaps I don’t know the full context of everything.
I’ve got some follow-up questions for him, and I guess I’ll make an appointment with another one as well, and I’ll probably look into alternative/new treatments.
I’m anxious about the future and the level of pain and discomfort it’s going to bring, along with the change in lifestyle.
I genuinely look at the future and wonder if life is worth it.
I guess I’ll find out. I’m on the doorstep of my non-profit stuff, and I can’t think of anything better to do in my life than try to help people all day everyday.
If that doesn’t make life worth it to me, then… that’s pretty sad on my part, I think?
We put animals out of their misery when they’re suffering. Of course, we can’t and don’t ask them if they’d rather live and keep suffering than die. We simply make the choice for them. I wonder if some of all would rather live?
I wonder why the prevailing culture is to look down on people who are in so much pain that they want to die? We have compassion for animals, but not for fellow human beings?
Is it because it’s inherently selfish? That’s what my brain says. As long as I’m alive and capable of helping someone, then it’s selfish for me to choose death to escape the pain instead of using my capabilities to help people.
But I wonder if there might come a point where my conscience could say that it’s okay, that I’ve done enough.
I feel weak and pathetic to even contemplate these things, knowing that there are so many people all over the world suffering so much greater than I am. My suffering, compared to so many, is minuscule.
Anyway, my surgeon said to just go ahead and keep living life like normal, and then we’ll reevaluate to see what’s needed as time goes on.
That’s where things are a little… confusing for me. I think basically my surgeon was like, hey, go live your life. This is going to be with you, and it’s going to be crappy, so you can either live your life and deal with the pain and discomfort and issues and perhaps a quicker progression of the disease but at least still live your life and do what you want to do for now and reevaluate as the years go by, or you can stop doing the things you want to do now and try to take it easy.
I guess I had better decide what I want to do.
After the appointment, I headed over to the recycling center to get rid of all the plastic bottles that have accumulated over time. I don’t like just throwing recyclables away, but sometimes it gets pretty annoying to be carrying around stuff for so long before you get to a recycling center.
After that, I spent some time at Haven Hill, first chatting with my brother-in-law for a while, then going down by the creek with the intent of starting to go through stuff again.
I got sidetracked pretty quickly, though, chatting with one of my brothers for a couple hours plus, and then going down to the creek itself, where I found that the latest storm that brought yet another tornado to the town just down the road from us brought enough water to blow out the dam that I had built.
I figured the day was coming, because, well, that’s just what happens in Arkansas. Eventually, you’re going to get a storm that’s big enough to blow everything out, even raise the water level by up to 8 or 10 ft.
Anyway so my little bathtub area is not quite back to it’s pre-dam level, but it’s pretty close.
After chatting with my brother, spent a fair amount of time burning sticks and mail and what not.
Then I went over and chatted with my brother-in-law again and ate dinner with them. Then I chatted with my other brother for a little bit, but he had to go pretty quickly.
After that, I was off to the neighborhood market in Pea Ridge pick up my pain medication prescription. I don’t like taking drugs, so I had the surgeon do a more mild drug–tramadol.
It wasn’t cheap.
I realized after they’d already filled the prescription, but before I had paid for it, that there was A coupon for that drug at a different pharmacy. It would have taken my $49 bill, or whatever it was, down to $18.50 or something, but they had already filled the prescription, and I didn’t want to be a pain in the butt and not pay for it after they had already filled it.
Oh well.
Chatted with one of my sisters for a good little while while I was waiting for the prescription to be filled.
Bought some comfort food because I’m… struggling a little bit.
Still twitching.
Lift the world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 