Welcome Back

For the past 15 years I have delivered medical reports on seemingly every part of my body. Among the dissections were monologues relating to my eyes, my ears, my shoulder, my prostate and, earlier this year, some unmentionable areas of discomfort that I just absolutely had to discuss in  excruciating detail. 

But the one region that has proved the most ongoing nemesis, the most stubborn adversary, is my back. It has laid me low far more frequently than the others and has caused me to almost feel my age on occasion.

Now, however, I think I have better news to pass along.

I hesitate to even discuss this with you for fear I will curse my present good fortune. That tomorrow I will wake and discover what has seemed to happen in fact has not. And that what I have felt, or more precisely, not felt was just waiting for the improper moment to serve vivid reminder of who is the boss around here.

I have always considered myself an athlete, defined myself by my athletic endeavors. As I grew older I knew there would be natural attrition. I would not be able to make the long throw from deep in the shortstop hole, not be running up and down a basketball court. But my ongoing back difficulties have lately robbed me of any pretense of my self anointed self image. My main remaining sporting endeavors, golf and skiing, incompatible with aching vertebrae.  And so, for the past two years I have largely become a spectator.

I am an admittedly lousy protector of my own physical well being. While I have many friends who swear by a daily regimen of exercise, of stretching, bending and twisting to strengthen backs that are otherwise ready to bark and bite, I have insisted that whatever small efforts I have undertaken have only exacerbated, amplified the problem. I am assuredly my own worst enemy when attempting to defeat, or at least quiet, my foe.

And so, over the last decade and a half I have, with some frequency, called upon a chiropractor to attempt to make the pain disappear. Principally however, the physical therapist has become my regular companion, often reducing my discomfort, never suggesting I was cured.

Recently a good friend and I were discussing my woes. She told me of a pain management doctor who had accomplished wonders for both her back and neck difficulties. She spoke of receiving a series of shots, culminating in something, something I did not then really understand, that alleviated what ailed her for at least 6 months at a clip.

My wife, my long beleaguered wife, forever the one to do virtually every duty required to get us from sun up to sundown each day, but recently tasked with literally everything north of lifting a tissue from its container, insisted that I at least meet with this man who had done right by our friend. What did I have to lose? She was persistent and I was, for once, not reluctant to seek another alternative.

Thus I found myself, almost exactly a month ago in the waiting room of an office, my wife there to be my ears so that what I was advised was not lost in translation. We arrived an hour before our appointed hour. The receptionist greeted me by name. She explained there were only two people on that afternoon's calendar, and the other was a woman. The lack of a crowd made me slightly uneasy.

Quickly we were able to meet with the doctor. I gave him my history, he told me of my options. As I had received an epidural earlier in the summer, which did little to change my outlook on life, he suggested the next possibility. I would receive a series of what I understood to be lidocaine shots into my facet joints, whatever they were, wherever they were, two weeks apart. If they proved a success in temporarily putting my pain to sleep, then he knew he hit pay dirt. After that I would receive radial ablation which, if it performed as advertised, could give that half year of nirvana.

Great, I said, I'm ready. This remark was made in jest, as I imagined in a month or so I would start the process.

Fifteen minutes later I was on the table with needles being stuck several times on both sides of my back. Before the time when my appointment was scheduled to commence, it was over. In a little bit, if this worked, my cursing once more at my lousy golf game, would become a reality.

That was on a Friday afternoon. The following Monday morning I played my first full round of golf in probably 6 months. Nervous throughout that the next swing would serve as exclamation point as to why I was but a couch potato (and only if the couch was firm enough) in 2024. But I survived, the only bruise to my ego as the limitations of my game were brought into sharp focus.

Over the last 4 weeks I have played golf 7 times, each one proving less worrisome than those that came before, my pain limited to 3 putts, slices and a general incapacity to locate a birdie anywhere in my vicinity.

By last Friday I better understood what a radial ablation was and what it was intended to accomplish. The nerve endings in my facet joints were to be burned off, thus theoretically taking away the source from which my unhappiness radiated. These nerves would regenerate, normally in 6 months or so (thus the time limits on my freedom). The procedure could then be repeated.

I was admittedly a teensy bit uneasy with what was to occur on that table. I had after all been advised I could, if I wished, be knocked out during this process. That sounded most reasonable and rational to me. But the friend who steered me to this office suggested that was wholly unnecessary. My wife reminded me how poorly I handled sedation and so, with some healthy hesitation and trepidation, local anesthetics were my only buffer against the burning sensation.

I never felt a thing. Despite the doctor's warning that the pain might be a 6 or 7, zippo, zero discomfort arrived. My only reaction, as the doctor left the room and I wished him a good trip to Italy later that day, was that my legs were as wobbly as a new born colt's for about half an hour after getting up from the table.

That was 3 days ago and today I remain, knock on wood, quite happily amazed. I will shortly once more be testing my hopefully fully numb facets to a barrage of silent curses and testy exchanges with my golf clubs. If I am fortunate I will take the the time to smell the roses, or at least look at the fall foliage. Never more appreciative of being able to once again consider myself an athlete. Old and diminished but still an athlete.

And for that unexpected gift, all I can say to myself is welcome back.