Gee, another, what, 15 months or so without an update. What's up with that? Well, to be honest, I've had some major life-changing set backs and just haven't had the energy to write about them until now.
As I noted before, I'd gone back to work and was doing very well. I was the happiest i'd been in 4 or 5 years. Well, on May 5, 2004, that all began to change for the worse. I was rear-ended on my new trike (I'd had it only 2 months to the day) by an idiot trying to beat a red-light across a busy intersection to a freeway on-ramp while I was stopped at a yield sign. That story in and of itself is a very long one that I'll perhaps address later. I ended up doing several sessions of PT over the next 4 months. When there seemes no othe choice, according to my excellent neurosurgeon and the ugly MRI he showed me, I underwent surgery again on 10-28-04. I was expecting to be back to work by 2-05. So much for expectations. The MRI showed a very large herniation but it didn't show the disk that had already ruptured and, by the time I went in for surgery, was leaking spinal fluid.
Here I am some 17 months post-op and still not getting around very well. I've avoided the wheelchair and walker this time with great vigor. But I'm stuck, at this point still yet, with 2 canes instead of one. I move much slower and with much greater pain. It hasn't been a good experience to say the least.
The doc told me to consider myself retired. I'm not yet giving into that frame of mind. I'm still positive and up-beat as I can be. But I have to admit this second time around is much more difficult than was the first.
I ask that you keep me in your prayers and now that I feel I'm mentally able I plan to make updates and posts more frequently.
One last item of note; I've lost most of that weight-gan back down. I'm back to about 286 lbs. now and am determined to get below 250. Wish me luck!