Res Ipsa Loquitur

*deep 6-8" incision down one's spine*

OK, I almost passed out there.

Glad to hear that you're doing well, though. That's just outstanding news.

Hooray for the comfy chair. Now confess.

Keith, I'm still under the influence of opiates. There's no telling what I'd confess to right now. What do you wanna know?

So Craig, guess you don't want to hear about the titanium wire cage he put in there or the dead guy bone replacement for the disc he took out huh? Or even the staples holding everything together?

Technology is kewl.

"Dead guy bone replacement"?

I hope this is a transplant, and not something more horrid to contemplate.

It sounds pretty bad, but finding creative uses for a long shoe horn sounds pretty neat. Yo go, gal!

Yep Chaz, they use it to replace the disc between the two damaged vertebrae. It's grafted onto everything to help fuse it together. Everyone was calling it polite little phrases like 'the hospital's bone source' until Mike & I called it what it was: dead guy bone. The neurosurgeon thought that was pretty funny.

It's been pretty uncomfortable Jim, but not nearly so bad as the searing pain down my leg had gotten. You can't imagine how happy I am that's gone.

The long shoe horn is handy, but the two tools I use most are the mechanical grabber thingy and a stick with different types of hooks on each end. It's really annoying not being able to bend over, and those two tools are as handy as pockets on a shirt.

Glad you're getting better. I loved the grapper after my surgery. I had to give it up when I was feeling better. I was getting too lazy to bend down and pick things up.

The Spousal Unit has some dead guy bone and titanium in her neck, too, so that doesn't make me too twitchy!

Val, my mom's still using hers even though she was supposed to stop months ago. I don't think I'll get that attached to it, but it is fun to tease the cat with it.

Craig, how long before I'll know whether it took or not? I really wanted to use the new bone-growing paste but the neurosurgeon said he couldn't unless the fusion failed. Then he & Mike got sidetracked on this long geeky discussion about how that was an inefficent use of resources from an engineering standpoint. Not that I disagreed, just at that point I was ready to get knocked out & get it over with. lol