A little background. In 2003, I had back surgery to fuse vertebrae L4 and L5. The surgeon also did a little judicious scraping here and there to open up the nerve channels, and he replaced my once-functioning disc material with cadaver bone and titanium screws. Four of 'em. Limited mobility, but no pain, was the upshot. Until recently. It seems that sitting all day at an 8-to-5 job is not good for a person with my history. In fact, it's very, very bad.
Mind you, I do get up from my chair every hour on the hour to stretch, to walk around my cubicle, or to go mind somebody else's business, but evidently that's not enough. No, I have what is referred to in the trade as "Failed back-surgery syndrome." FBSS. Yes, there is probably some BS in there.
Not that I shouldn't have had the surgery. I should have. But I didn't follow up properly enough. I didn't strengthen my core. I didn't even know what my core was until I was told that I had to strengthen it. So let this be a warning to you all. Find your core. Strengthen it. Or else you, too, will end up with a $6,730.00 bloody nose.
I went to see a local Pain Specialist. What they do is this. They listen to your complaint, tell you that you have FBSS, and then they tell you that the only way to fix it is to have a steroid injection in your spine. Alright! That'll do it! Did I ask about side-effects? No. I had this same procedure in 2002, twice, prior to the surgery. So I knew about all of them. Sleeplessness, irritability, edema, headaches, etc. No sweat - except for the night ones.
Did I ask how much it would cost? No. My insurance in 2002 paid for it - all of it. Should I have? Oh yeah. I got the bill yesterday. I won't have to shoulder the entire burden. Only about $1,060.62 of it. Still. That's a lot to pay for a bloody nose.
So now you are asking - "What's up with the bloody nose, fer chrissake?" Well, just before the anesthesiologist squirted the stuff that would give me blessed release from the anxiety that accompanies the knowledge that someone I just met would be swabbing my naked backside with antiseptic and then threading a 30-foot needle into my back thigh via my sacrum, he inserted two tubes into my nostrils. Oxygen, he said. Fresh from the bottle, he said. Dry, he neglected to say.
For two weeks now I have been scraping bloody crustables from my interior nasal cavities. The air out here - minus 20% humidity - doesn't help. I'm probably anemic by now. But I figure that $6,730.00 is a small price (for me and my insurance company) to pay. Except for my wallet, I am pain-free. And I am well on my way to having a strengthened core. Whatever that is.
Mind you, I do get up from my chair every hour on the hour to stretch, to walk around my cubicle, or to go mind somebody else's business, but evidently that's not enough. No, I have what is referred to in the trade as "Failed back-surgery syndrome." FBSS. Yes, there is probably some BS in there.
Not that I shouldn't have had the surgery. I should have. But I didn't follow up properly enough. I didn't strengthen my core. I didn't even know what my core was until I was told that I had to strengthen it. So let this be a warning to you all. Find your core. Strengthen it. Or else you, too, will end up with a $6,730.00 bloody nose.
I went to see a local Pain Specialist. What they do is this. They listen to your complaint, tell you that you have FBSS, and then they tell you that the only way to fix it is to have a steroid injection in your spine. Alright! That'll do it! Did I ask about side-effects? No. I had this same procedure in 2002, twice, prior to the surgery. So I knew about all of them. Sleeplessness, irritability, edema, headaches, etc. No sweat - except for the night ones.
Did I ask how much it would cost? No. My insurance in 2002 paid for it - all of it. Should I have? Oh yeah. I got the bill yesterday. I won't have to shoulder the entire burden. Only about $1,060.62 of it. Still. That's a lot to pay for a bloody nose.
So now you are asking - "What's up with the bloody nose, fer chrissake?" Well, just before the anesthesiologist squirted the stuff that would give me blessed release from the anxiety that accompanies the knowledge that someone I just met would be swabbing my naked backside with antiseptic and then threading a 30-foot needle into my back thigh via my sacrum, he inserted two tubes into my nostrils. Oxygen, he said. Fresh from the bottle, he said. Dry, he neglected to say.
For two weeks now I have been scraping bloody crustables from my interior nasal cavities. The air out here - minus 20% humidity - doesn't help. I'm probably anemic by now. But I figure that $6,730.00 is a small price (for me and my insurance company) to pay. Except for my wallet, I am pain-free. And I am well on my way to having a strengthened core. Whatever that is.
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