I don't know if anyone noticed I've been gone but slightly over a year ago I ended up in the hospital. I have 5 ruptured discs pressing on my spinal nerve due to Scheuermann's Disease and I've been more-or-less bedridden and with huge amounts of pain and medication ever since. I really have no idea how to describe what pain I was in at the first 6 months because I didn't know that kind of pain could exist. There really aren't words in English that do it justice... moving along, however.

Now I'm not going to tell a story because honestly, it would be at least 200 pages with everything I've been through over the year but thank God, it's finally coming to an end! I'm getting surgery next Thursday, the 11th. They're going to cut my whole back open and put two titanium rods and screws up and down my whole spine. After an estimated 6 weeks of heavy-duty recovery time though, my pain should finally come to end--and not a day too soon because I can't work or go to school anymore and bills are piling up. And my parents insurance coverage also runs out this month, and as I said, I can't work or go to school to get it.

So that's my status update, and if you are of the religious type, I would sincerely appreciate your prayers. I have good odds of healing successfully, but a 15% chance I won't get any better or could get worse, and a small-but-scary chance I could be paralyzed or even die from the surgery.

Dutch has "[pain] that goes through marrow and bone".("[pijn] die door merg en been gaat")
Sincerely hope this will end the crap for you, and wish you strength for the recovery. I bet 6 weeks looks like nothing after a year. But, not moving ahead of things, I hope you can get some rest before the big operation.
Let us know how it went

I've broken and shattered multiple bones, and while that can certainly cause a great deal of pain, it is nothing compared to the pain of spinal injuries. When I was waiting for my spinal surgery, I had days where all I could do was lie flat on my back as even trying to sit up was too painful to bare.

@Chris

Glad to hear things are getting better. Good luck with the surgery.

My surgery site was in my neck, right next to the carotid artery. The surgeon was very honest when he told me that "If we accidentally puncture it, then unfortunately you will bleed to death before we can even try to do anything about it."

Very comforting words.

Holy butterflies!

Good luck with the surgery man, I'll light a candle for you!

I'm sorry to hear of your condition. Good luck with the surgery. I hope to see you back on the boards eventually.

I was thinking that we haven't heard about you, Deathwish, for quite a long time. Sorry to hear that and good luck with the surgery.

... and here's me worrying about my cat's cystitis. Hope things go well, but a quick google suggests it's a procedure that gives very good results.

Wow so much crap is happening to you guys member after member. I am trying to to resist scanning through your post to see if this is some kinda of punishment.

edit
Its time to get your selfs in the church people

Ow.

Best of luck to you!

Don't worry; your time is coming.

I'm pretty sure it already did.

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My god approves.

Also, OP, best of luck.

Best of luck!

Best luck. Good wishes.

Best of luck!

Really hope the procedure helps

Sterkte! Good luck!

Good luck with the surgery, may you come back in One Piece ^^

You're gonna be a cyborg! I hope the procedure goes swimmingly.

The boards aren't as good without you. Good luck.

Good luck.

I'm going for a major round of tests today before the surgery, Thursday.

Thank you, everyone for your support.

Break a leg!

/me hoping everything went smoothly...

Make sure to apply for disability. My wife had a Thoracotomy back at the end of 2008 followed by many more surgeries (we're hitting #18 this November). A social worker actually got on our case to help act as a mediator for getting disability through the proper channels and, because our medical history was pretty black and white, we got approved after a few months of paper work.

We had to go through several years barely making it check to check due to medical bills and not being able to work. That's added stress that is not necessary.

Good luck and best wishes. Make sure to regularly inquire your doctor of proper ways to ween off medical narcotics. I'm not going to go into why I'm stressing that, but I think it can be inferred.

Well its been some time passed now.

Guess he did not pull through.
anyone in his area got an updated on him?

He just had an operation on/around his spine. Give it time.

Exactly. I think it's far more likely that Chris just has more pressing issue on his mind than posting here.

Can you rephrase that as a pun?

Judging from the Facebook photos he's doing OK. Well at least he made it through surgery.

I'm alive! Thank you, everyone, for your words of encouragement! My back now looks a lot like this:

I'm still recovering but I'm already worlds better. On a good day now, I'm so much better (still healing) than even the day before surgery, which as after 13 months of debilitating pain and ever-so-slight healing since the accident.

Turns when they opened me up, my back was worse than the MRI even showed so they were very glad we ended up with the surgery route.

I'm getting better but I'm still on a lot of meds. I will seriously warn anyone to stay away from Valium. I'm one of the nicest guys I know and I would never try to harm anyone. But on it I apparently was psychotic, hearing voices, having bouts of rage and throwing things and I didn't even remember any of it. Once they took me off the Valium I went completely back to normal Chris.

It's a very strange feeling having two long titanium rods traversing my entire back. If I sit against a seat or a wall, I can distinctly feel wall, thin layer of skin and muscle, and then the metal rod inside me. And I used to use many ice packs directly on my back but I tried recently and I froze. Turns out having metal rods in your back conducts cold very well.

Now all you need is some in your hands and we can call you wolverine.

Its great that you're doing better.

Glad to hear everything turned out great for you, CK!

Try getting through those airport scanners now;D

Nah, it's titanium. It won't cause a problem with metal detectors.

The new backscatter machines and the other new stuff may have an issue with it.

How does it feel to be a cyborg? ...

Glad it turned out good.

Welcome back Robocop.

Glad the surgery went well, keep getting better!

Remember to remind them if they want to do an MRI, and get back to the videos of driving through the woods!

That's a good idea. A friend of mine got some piece of metal in his hand to fix a rather complicated fracture. He was tended to by two doctors. One for the hand, the other for his spine. The neurochirurg wanted to do MRI, but didn't know about the metal in my friend's hand - poor communication. Thankfully a friend asked whether it might be a problem

Anyway, good to hear you're ok.