August 24 – “At your age …”

Well, I made it to my neurosurgeon appointment yesterday.  Not that I was looking for another chance to go under the knife, mind you.  I was just following what was, for some strange reason, proper procedure for entering into the HMO insurance we are now under.  I had to go see a neurosurgeon before I could establish with a neurologist.  That just seemed backwards to me.  in fact back in the good old days when we could still get a PPO and select our own doctors, that was how it was done. 

So the doc too a look at the CD I brought with my last lower back MRI.  He studied the lab result of the last myelogram I had.  He listened carefully to my take on where I was with the back pain (He might have been recounting what he had for lunch earlier in the day, but to me it seemed he really was listening).  He obviously knew my neurosurgeon in Houston, at least by reputation.  And finally he made his official declaration.  “Your lower back is a mess, really … a mess.”  OK.  I already knew that, but I suppose I was grateful for the confirmation.  I have not one, but two synovial cysts on my spine.  There are a few quite distinctive bulging discs.  And to top it all off, there is considerable stenosis.

All the “official” stuff out of the way, from his perch on the chair next to me, he said, “There are some things that you NEED to do and there are some things that you WANT to do.  At your age (Yep, he really went there) you need to make decisions based on those distinctions.  You NEED to get up and get dressed and take a shower – things like that.  You probably WANT to do other things.  Like maybe running.  You figure it’s the quickest way to burn calories.  You have to choose.  But don’t choose to run.  You can walk.  Ride a bike.  Just do it for longer.  The bottom line is, we don’t like to do any surgery on the lower back at you age until it is truly a matter of ‘I can’t do something I NEED to do.’  Once you start with the surgeries, one will work for a while until the next one is needed.  That one will work for not as long.  Until finally the surgery won’t work at all and we start to wonder if we shouldn’t have done anything in the first place.  Here is something you can watch for: As long as you can point your toes toward your face and stand on your tiptoes, you’ll be OK.  Your Mom lived to be almost 88 years old.  That means if the genes match up you have a good 25 years left.” 

We spent the last ten or fifteen minutes of the appointment talking about HBU (I was wearing a t-shirt).  His daughter works with Sharon Saunders there, an administrator we actually know.  And we talked about Baylor.  He went there.  So did his kids.  And football scandals are a lot easier to talk about than bad backs. 

And so I have mixed emotions.  My back is officially a total mess that I shouldn’t try to do anything about as long as I can live with it as it is.  That’s kind of depressing.  But at least somebody came out and said, “Don’t run.  Don’t have surgery right now.  Walk all you want.  Do as much as you can do.  Stop when it is evident that it will hurt.  Listen to your body.”  There is a kind of relief that comes from confirmation. 

Whew.  My back hurts.  Just kidding … sort of …  Let me start again.  Let’s go to DisneyWorld.  Now, that’s better.

1 Corinthians 12:4-6 says, “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit.  There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord.  There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men.”

Father, thank you for the confirmations about my back.  Thank you for the relief some of the medications have offered.  Thank you for a doctor that we really liked.  Amen.