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I'm somewhat wordy this morning. I suppose that's good and I should be happy that my mind is still sharp enough to string a few words together. But what am I thinking? What am I going to do with the day? And that's going to be the question for the next three months. With surgery not even on the calendar yet, I'm facing a long wait with my days and nights filled with drugs to keep me pain free or as close to pain free as the chemicals will allow. But…narcotics don't stop nerve pain. They just muddle your head enough to make you less aware of the pain. This works. Sometimes. Believe me, an offended nerve will cut right through a narcotic haze to deliver its message! I will be taking two other drugs that are prescribed just for nerve pain. One doesn't do anything at all; it's the one I've been using for the past three months and the other one may or may not work but the significant side effect is that I will become lethargic and my mind will slip into low gear. Which won't bother me because I will be beyond worrying. Just cruising.

But wait, I didn't even mention why I'm waiting for surgery again. Since my post-op pain was not decreasing but instead was increasing, the surgeon wanted another MRI, one with contrast and one without. And since my laminectomy had removed the overlaying bone, this latest MRI revealed the fact that the nerve root on the right side of L-5 was caught in the foramen, the hole in the bone, and scarring and bone growth was holding it firmly. In the previous surgery, he had probed that nerve channel for 5 cm and found it free, that was standard, but his probe couldn't reach behind the pedicle where the nerve was caught. So, a Foraminotomy is going to be scheduled sometime in the first part of the new year. It's a major surgery with a few days of hospital stay but I don't anticipate having to donate my own blood for it as I did last time. And why are we waiting so long? Because the bone grafts from the previous surgery have to be strong enough to support me after he cuts away some of bone that is causing so much pain for me.