October 25 – “Soaking”

Just a short entry today.  It’s Sunday and it has been raining for two days straight and we have had abnormally high tides.  Not a good combination.  We’ll probably have to leave early to get to church.  I’m anxious to see what the West End looks like.

So here are the results of my visit to the neurosurgeon.  The bottom line is this: until I begin to get issues with my legs – pain shooting down or weakness – whatever is causing the pain is not really something that surgery would correct.  He can’t really know for sure if it is a cyst or herniated disk until he goes in and looks at it.  It seems a lot of the problems I am experiencing are from congenital stuff.  The inherited stenosis.  The tough luck stuff.  There is also apparently a tendon scraping across bone and popping.  That’s never a joyful feeling, either.  So … pain management is the next step.  Feels like a step backward, but at least it means no surgery right now.  He did give me a referral to a doctor who administers the shots in the back for pain.  I told them I would call back and make an appointment after we had time to let all the new information soak in. 

So that’s where we are right now.  Soaking.  In more ways than one, thanks to Hurricane Patricia remnants, our own low in the Gulf and a cold front trying to make its way through.  Quite the soaking event.

Hebrews 12:11 says, “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”

Father, thank you for the rain.  Thanks as well that no one was injured down in Mexico because of the storm coming through.  Please be with the families who lost loved ones at that Homecoming parade crash in Oklahoma yesterday.  Amen.