Can't you just rip it out and give me a new one?

I think I always knew I'd be in pain for the rest of my life. It's been a fact of my life for as long as I can remember, so why should it not continue to be a factor? But again, actually hearing a doctor tell me that I have a "50-year-old back" and that regardless of what they do to fix the problem, it isn't going to eliminate the pain, somehow made it more real. Yep. All the suspicions I had about my spine were right. Even if they did perform a laminectomy and fuse my L4-L5 vertebrae, chances are, disease would progress to my other lumbar disks, which are already showing signs of wear.

I decided to go ahead with physical therapy. I have my evaluation in a week. I hesitated at first, because I did not want to go through all the work in PT, then have to go back to square one if I ended up having surgery. But since it seems like surgery isn't necessarily the most effective option and because I'm fucking terrified of surgery I have decided, for now, to go with a more conservative approach. This will include regular PT, hydrotherapy, possibly electrotherapy (especially for my neck), continued pain management with gabapentin and percocet.

There is a possibility of undergoing a nerve-block procedure. The nerve block is another injection, but this is numbing medication similar to novocaine which will be targeted at the nerve root. If numbing the nerve root lessens the pain, the next step might be cauterizing the nerve root to "kill" it. I may need this done several times a year. After my first experience with injections, I am of course sceptical and nervous about any similar procedures, but if physical therapy fails to help, I might consider it.

Surgery is, by no means, off the table. I'm just trying to balance my terror of going under the knife with my desire to get it overwith if it needs to be done, and not draw things out. Honestly, I am still disappointed that the procedure I hoped to have is unavailable for the lumbar spine. Taking out the broken part and putting in a new, shiny replacement is just so much more appealing to me than poking and prodding my collapsed disc and arthritic vertebrae trying to get them to work. I mean, it's like when you've got a car, and it's not that old, but stuff keeps going wrong with it and you discover one day that it'd be cheaper and easier to get a new one rather than to pour money and effort into fixing it over and over again. Unfortunately, I am told, the human body doesn't work like that, and even if they fixed all the damage, there's no guarantee it would stop the pain. It's kind of like wrapping duct tape around a frayed cord, which fixes the weak point, but ends up causing another weak point right below where you put the tape.

I have a lot of choices to make, and I'm kind of overwhelmed. I'm grateful that I have so much support from people who love me. I'm just .... tired. One day, I promise you, I will become a cyborg.