May 1, 2024
In 2009, I finally got an Orthopedic Surgeon to fuse my neck from the front. She did C5-C6-C7.
She has been retired for several years. Damn! Before the surgery, she advised me that after 10 years I might need another surgery above or below the bones involved. She advised me that up to 25% of patients with that surgery get movement of spinal parts causing stresses over time that necessitate a second surgery.
My pain began at about 8 years after surgery. As you know, people get old and parts wear out--like cars.
Why don't today's surgeons know about the ten-year re-do? I have been to a neurosurgeon and an orthopedic surgeon. No takers.
This is just my neck; I have a myriad of problems with the lumbar back. I found excitement at age 20,21,22 riding bulls in practice rodeo. One bull had a personal problem with me and, after covering him the 8 seconds, rammed me into a steel corral fence. There was and end of steel pipe projecting into the ring and he threw me into it. I think he was trying to impale me. Well, one broken rib and a mysterious right lumbar injury that is a painful daily reminder of that ride.
The only actual, formal rodeo in which I participated in was the Camp Pendleton Rodeo in 1979. Two broken lumbar vertebrae and a twisted neck from my one and only ride on a bareback bucking horse came from it.
Oh, to be a young man again! Would I ride the rodeo? Try for a second go-round? I hate to say it, but maybe....
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