Ode to a bone spur

After months and months of being shuttled back and forth between one disinterested specialist after another, my surgery date finally came last week. Nearly a year after I’d first begun to notice the symptoms, my Bone Spur and I were about to be parted.

What is a Bone Spur? Pretty much what it sounds like. It’s a little bony stalactite growing inside your body, contrary to nature’s design. The doctors couldn’t tell me for sure where the damage proceeded from … My own best guess is probably during one of the hilarious pratfalls I am alleged to taken during the nineties when I used to like to drink some.

The doctors had me on Super-Advils for about 3 months prior to surgery (while many were the hoops that were jumped through), which made all the difference in the world for pain management. I was beginning to question the sagacity of my chosen course of action. Then for two weeks before surgery, they forbade me any kind of pain medication, specifically ibuprofin. So by the time the big day came, I was all the way totally back into it. “Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of same-day surgical procedures!”

The day-of was an awesome day. Bright and sunny, we made it off the island and to the medical facility on the mainland nearby without hardly getting lost at all. And my favorite Canadian hard-rockers Rush were on both the front page and the back page of the USA Today entertainment section that morning which I had to take as a good sign.

When I get nervous, I tend to start cracking wise. Especially in medical situations. I want these cocksuckers to have a personal, vested interest in whether I make it out I one piece or not. I really put on the dog & pony show. It’s one-part nervous reflex to one-part deliberate attempt to ingratiate myself with the people about to knock me unconscious and cut into me with sharp knives and electrical drills. If I can make them laugh I figure I got maybe a little better than 50/50 chance of waking up in recovery instead of at the Pearly Gates.

So they gave me a nerve-block on my neck before the surgery. This made my entire left arm loose as a silly putty noodle for hours even after I regained consciousness. When we got home afterwards, it kept slipping out of its sling and I never noticed unless I happened to catch movement out of the corner of my eye. Fwinnng! There it goes again. Wish I had gotten it on video. At the same time, it was creepy as hell. It’s like your mouth after a filling at the dentist, except it doesn’t go away in a couple of hours and your chin doesn’t keep dropping unnoticed onto your chest.

Back in the pre-surgical area, a low panic began to set in as the lady with all the needles arrived. I said, “Hey, when you gonna get me some of that relax-me-already stuff you promised me?” She looked puzzled and checked my drip. “Eh, you’re already on it,” she answered. “Really. Do I look I’m on it? I don’t feel like I’m on it.” I don’t remember if I said that last part or just thought it.

For the record, everybody on the surgical team couldn’t have been nicer. One guy even remained polite after he thought the “Rush” I was enthusing about was the right-wing radio gasbag not the hard rock trio. What a pro!

Shortly after that, they wheeled me fully conscious and not the least bit glowy with good feeling into the operating room. Somebody put a mask on my face and told me to breathe deeply. I started to shiver all over from the cold and the fear, waiting for someone to tell me to count back from 100. The next thing I knew, some stranger was disinterestedly encouraging me to wake up, back out in the big room I had been in before being wheeled into surgery.

The next 24 hours are a narcotic blur. The gimpy left arm was freaking me out, I had this huge apparatus on my shoulder, they insisted I start my pain meds before their pain meds wore off so I was loopy on goofballs the whole time. I had ice packs to change every couple of hours which I couldn’t change by myself…

On the second night, Saturday, we went to see “The Dark Knight” at the IMAX and I was already trying to kick my meds. It was the first time The Missus had seen it and we were both blown away. I took a Vicodin in the bathroom but not till after.

The Missus – Dr. Missus, as it were – was the Most Valuable Player throughout the entire, happily abbreviated ordeal. (I vaguely remember it included the Super Bowl. Geez, maybe I didn’t like Bruce’s performance just because I was cranky on the drugs?) I couldn’t ask for a braver or more willing accomplice in tending to medical grossness. She bucked-up real good and I’m proud of her and grateful to her.

Finally after 48 hours, I was allowed to remove all the bandages they put on me and take a shower!! By then, I was looking and feeling like a bowery bum. I, the most sedentary person I know, smelled like perspiration. I supposed I could have had The Missus sponge-bathe me but decided to draw the line at that. I took some more Vicodin even though the Super-Advils were getting the job done by then and showered and shaved till I felt almost human again.

The thing that sucks about Vicodin, for me, is it’s a fun, logey buzz for about the first day but after that it just makes me twitchy. And I don’t need help making me twitchy, that’s already my default position. Makes me wish Johnny Cash hadn’t liked the pain drugs that he was on, maybe he coulda quit ‘em.

Anyhow, by day three I was pretty much back on feet and ready to go. So I sat on the couch as I ran out my vacation week-off from work. Them TVs these days sure got a lotta channels…

For completists, a Best-Of clip job of my operation is below, provided by the sawbones himself: