Spine-tingling

I thought that, considering all the crazy-ass PTSD and psychological stuff I write about all the time, an entry about a problem with my physical body would be comparatively easy. I have been bitching about pain for the last few entries. I've even played show-and-tell with my squishy insides. But somehow... somehow the word "surgery" has thrown me. That's right. Big, tough, crazy, Heathen me, who went through a colonoscopy fully-conscious and without any medication, is terrified of surgery.

I've been looking up surgical options. There many different types of surgery available. The ones involving spinal fusion all entail bone grafts. This is scary to me, because they involve injuring another part of my body to fix the part that's broken. They would take some bone from my hip and fuse it to my spine. It would also involve quitting smoking immediately, since nicotine apparently slows down the healing of bone. Well, fuck me. There goes one of my coping methods. (It's an unhealthy coping method, but it's a coping method nonetheless.)

The other option, which I do not know if I am a candidate for because of my weight and other factors, would be a total artificial disc replacement. The doctor I am seeing next Wednesday specialises in this particular surgery, and, in fact, helped pioneer it. It's attractive to me because it does not involve breaking one thing to fix another. It also seems to have a much shorter recovery period, with patients encouraged to start walking the first day after surgery. On paper, I like this, but if the doctor says, "You need to lose 50 pounds first," well, how the fuck do I do that when I can't fucking exercise?

Regardless of which procedure the surgeon prescribes, it's going to be life-changing, and it will not eliminate the pain. It may lessen the pain to the point at which I am more functional without the aid of a cane, but it isn't going to make the damage magically disappear. There is going to be a lot of physical therapy and a lot of teeth-gnashingly difficult lifestyle adjustments.

And then, there's the surgery itself. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I am absolutely terrified of anaesthesia. I have this horrible fear that they'll put me out, and I won't wake up. Well, that would be a shit way to die, wouldn't it? Screw that! There's also this irrational part of me that thinks, "While I'm out, they could do anything to me and I wouldn't know." I don't like the feeling of lost time, of not being in control. I don't like the idea of going to sleep and waking up having had my body sliced open and my innards manipulated. If I could, I'd stay awake during the whole thing so I could watch exactly what they were doing.

For now, though, surgery is still just a concept. I haven't spoken to either surgeon I am considering, yet. So, I'm dealing with painkillers and their associated crap. Sometimes I kinda like the loopy feeling, but really, it's getting old. I know it's going to be another big battle to get off the Percocet once all the other stuff is done. I see my psychiatrist today, and I'm going to have to tell her that I'm going to be on opiate pain killers for the foreseeable future. I don't know how or if that will change my psych meds. We'll see.

Fuckity fuck.

I look to my gods for strength, and I know They will see me through. I already know that I'm going to get an Irminsul tattooed over the scar, however large or small the scar ends up being. If you don't know what that is, here is a link, and here's a picture of the design most commonly used to represent it today: