Dr. Wonderful

I'm seriously feeling the love today. Thanks to everyone who sent me well-wishings. Feel free to send baked goods as well.

Okay, so first order of business. I went to the Orthopedics on Monday, and the doc there was a godsend. I wanted to bring her home with me. She spent almost an hour with me, which is unheard of with medics. We went over the MRI and X-rays and she explained it all. I remembered all the terminology. The names of the bones and the parts of the cells. I had a kickass teacher in high school that made me fall in love with Biology, and then Anatomy, and the classes where you get to cut things up with a knife and look at the innards. The information was lodged in my brain and shook loose while examining my own torqued spine.

The verdict is that they want to use surgery as a last resort right now. I wrapped myself around the woman when she delivered that news, kissing her wildly. Looking at the tests, I could see I did some serious damage. The discs between my lower three vertebrae are completely ruptured, squishing the nerve against the bone. Both doctors were amazed that I wasn't stabbing someone in the eye over the pain, grabbing random people on the bus and shaking the life out of them, hobbling screaming through the streets. I don't know. When someone doesn't tell you how bad an injury is, you just deal with it. It's like placebo effect. Mind over matter.

According to the fine doc, I'm young and they're betting it will heal in the next six months. They're going to reassess in three months to see what's going on. In the meantime there's lots of walking and swimming and yoga. Which is an excellent plan because I'm going to Florida for two weeks and that's all I'll be doing.

I've been given extremely powerful drugs for the pain, and the medicine is helping enough that I'm not howling. But it's still a mind-bending pain. And I'm still lacking feeling in my right leg, which is just plain weird. But this type of thing tends to get easier to endure when someone tells you it's going to get better, and better in a certain amount of time. I can hold on when I know the end is near. (keep your fingers crossed)

What else was I going to tell you people? Not only do I forget, my lunch break is over and I have to go process something bought and sold, and sell something bought and processed.

Oooh! I know. Go out and buy the following two albums immediately: Los Halos For Ramona, which moves something deep and darkly sweet inside, and Elbow Alseep in the Back, which waltzes underwater. In some ways, this Elbow release reminds me of my Favorite Album of All Time, the Catherine Wheel Like Cats and Dogs. Which you may as well pick up while you're there.