Life is bigger

There is a REM song that starts out, "Oh, llife is bigger . . ." Maryellen and I say that sometimes to each other when the magnitude and intensity of life washes over us, and leaves us humbled. And we have had some of that bigness around here lately.

I haven't posted much lately because I have been preoccupied with my back. I have always had a maginal back, and I have always had back pain that predated my active farming years. But last August, something changed, and the back pain increased significantly. Since last August, it has gotten worse and worse, to the point where sitting is problematic, I wake up at night with pain, and my foot falls asleep at random intervals, usually when I am just standing or sitting somewhere normally.

So I tried a lot of different things. I tried laying off work some, yoga stretches, massage, exercise, no exercise, anti-inflamatories, but things kept getting worse. Finally, after the holidays, I went in for an MRI, and was told I have a massively herniated disc in my back. In some ways, this was good news, because it meant I wasn't just being a wimp about some nagging tweak. But in other ways, it was not such good news, obviously, because it meant there was something structurally wrong with my back, and a properly functioning back is pretty important to any vegetable operation.

Since we had tried a lot of non-surgical options already, the docs gave us kind of two options - surgery, or waiting it out. Apparently, lots of herniated discs resolve by themselves. Some of the disc fluid is reabsorbed by the body, the swelling goes down, pressure on the nerve is reduced, and the pain goes away. But it can take a lot of time. Like years sometimes, especially if you have a big herniation like me.

The other option is surgery, which removes the material pressing on the spine nerve, and allows the body to heal more quickly. The success rate is very high for this surgery these days, but hey, it's surgery! Any surgery includes the potential for nasty side effects, like death, paralysis, and the plain-old-not-working-to-remove-the-pain problem. So surgery is something that must be considered seriously. But, if everything goes well, you are pretty much as good as new after 4-6 weeks of recovery, or as the doc said, "If not new, then at least as good as you were before this happened!"

The rub for us is that I don't think I could make it through another veggie season with this pain. In fact, I know I couldn't. And the surgery holds out the tantilizing possibility of living without intense chronic pain, and of being able to continue to farm.

So we met with our surgeon last Thursday and decided to go for it! And we were able to get added on to an existing surgery slot with our doc, so I am going in tomorrow (Tuesday Jan. 31st) for the procedure! So there you have it - surgery tomorrow, hopefuly home tomorrow night or Wednesday morning.

We are in the able hands of the pros at the Dartmouth Spine Center, so we will be well taken care of. In a weird way, I am looking forward to the procedure. It turns out that chronic pain is a real bummer, so I am excited about having good odds at reduced pain. Wish me luck!