Surgical Trauma

Surgery is the back patient's last resort. Doctors say that an operation is necessary if you can't live with your pain level any longer, or if it is preventing you from living your life. What they don't tell you is that, sometimes, surgery doesn't change that.

I picked a microdiscetcomy because I had been limping straight for eight months. I was housebound, worried about taking too much time off and losing my health insurance when my status changed from "full-time student" to "medical leave". And I thought that keeping one part of my spine compromised would damage another part, causing a chain reaction that would leave me a cripple.

Yes, I tend towards the melodramatic. But I also believed I had waited long enough for something to work.

My surgeon told me that a successful surgery would result in a disappearance of sciatica from my right leg. However a week post-op, as I weaned myself off Vicodin, sciatica appeared in my left leg. I immediately drew all sorts of fatalistic conclusions, which were generally scoffed at as hysterical. Nine months and three cortisone injections later, both my legs are sciatic, and my surgeons are baffled.

Yesterday I rode a stationary bike next to a girl my age. She has a bulging disc, and is contemplating surgery. After our conversation, I thought more critically about what I had said, and I wished I had voiced a more forceful opposition to an operation. I should have said that one's lowest points are relative to what could happen down the road - and that the phrase "the last resort" really means the last thing you should ever try.

photo credit: http://www.surgery.wustl.edu/uploadedImages/Surgery/Surgical_Areas/mis_08_laparoscopic-surgery.jpg