Medical Update

Greetings, gentle readers.
First of all, it could be pointed out that this is the second blog post in a single day.  I'll discuss the pharmaceutical conditions later, but the more important thing is that I've actually also taken two showers in the same number of days.  That I still have any energy left is testimony to something.  I'm not sure what, but I'll be certain to blather about it later after... the iPod Nano shower playlist.

Music

• My Daddy is a Vampire, by the Meteors
• Fools, by the Lightning Seeds
• Go for a Ride, by Caesar's Palace
• Forever Again, by Melanie Chisholm
• Sorcerer, by Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham

This list seems to have some sort of thematic reference to role-playing, but what would I know about such things?

Spinal Tap

So here it is - full disclosure at last about my disability, drug use, surgical appointments, and future prospects as a professional baseball pitcher.  Not that anyone asked.
I've got what's known as C7 radiculopathy.  In short, I've got a disc between my C7 and C8 vertebrae that has been pinched, herniated, and has now closed my nerve canal on the left side of my spine at that spot, causing some severe pain and paralysis on my right hand side.  Yes, I know.  Left, right... the human body always does those crazy cross-over things, like the cranial hemispheres.

Drugs Are Our Mates

For the past few months, I've been running through varying doses and prescriptions of all manner of drugs.  The best combination that I've found thus far has been a high dosage of oxycontin mixed with a correspondingly eye-watering dosage of an anti-convulsant called pregabalin.  To me, that sounds like an expectant dwarf, and the side effects would seem to indicate to me that there is some sort of connection.  Never before have I had occasion to use the term gynaecomastia.  I recently tried to switch from the pregabalin to something called gabapentin, which sounds to me like a club of five gossipy women.  That didn't work out so well, so it turns out that I would rather grow breasts than lie in a foetal position, moaning incomprehensibly for hours.

Cuts Like a Knife

So I had a consultation with a neurosurgeon, who reviewed the MRI with me in all of its three-dimensional glory.  He approved me for spinal fusion surgery, and within that very week, I was scheduled to have a tube shoved into my thoracic cavity through the front of my neck (just dodging the esophagus).  When Darcy Henton told me of his operation, I thought he was taking the piss.  The spine runs along the dorsal side of the human thorax, not the ventral side.  Why mess about with the lungs and other squishy bits inside the chest cavity?  Anyway, that tube is then supposed to jam a plug between my vertebrae and then fuse the whole assembly such that the nerve is fully insulated from any future pressure.  Apparently, there may be some problems with neck flexibility down the line, but any potential difficulties pale in comparison with the screaming agony or drug-induced doziness that present themselves as the only two other alternatives.

In Conclusion

I've been conscious and semi-productive for far too long today.  I even tried to do some dishes.  It's time to lie down again.  Combine my exhaustion with my disappointment that Liverpool lost the final of the Audi Cup in a penalty shootout yesterday, and you've got a sleepy little camper who needs to rest up for the Athletic Bilbao match on Saturday.  I'll try to summarize the LFC preseason at some point before the kick-off against Watford at Vicarage Road, but certainly not now.
Until next time, good night England and the colonies.
—mARKUS