Vertical Farming

(a pre-imagined scenario)

So the mad surgeon's plan tomorrow is to muster his troop of tools and tunnel thru a bit of backbone fascia and then find the pinched nerves and clear the area.  There are ascending and descending levels of disks, and he relies on navigation coordinates. At the hot zone, he'll trim and scrape and vacuum out chunks of semi-hardened ooze from the ruptured disk.

It's a harvest of pain.

Meanwhile, I daydream of being able to reach up high and pick a few plump tomatoes from a vertical farm's top shelf. The stem fragrance goes on forever.

I put them in a basket (not too heavy a load though) and walk to the front of the greenhouse to pay the man for his nice hydroponic products.  (The optimistic verbs here are "reach" and "walk.")

The owner is Russo-Finnish. His crayon-written store signs have strange Cyrillic letters and spelling and are phrased like Spenserian Stanzas.

Or prayer.

The mad surgeon has a name like a Mongolian warrior and is rotund and sincere and appears bodily strong, as an invading emperor should be.

I dream, floating on Propofol, of a tomato salad. With feta, olives, cauliflower bits, Oil & V.

Tipping Point

Several days of back and forth about pulmonary clearance, and this particular patient is tired of being in the middle and pulled in multiple directions.  Constantly explaining and re-explaining an old issue, trying to propel my way through the gauntlet.

Things will resolve as they will. After a lot of back and forth, I took their PFT test and hopefully that should suffice. Will know Monday, surgery supposed to be on Thursday.

Have Another Tylenol, Cowboy

Politely Contentious

Monday. The journey through the maze of gatekeepers and box-checkers continues.

FaceTime visits with a cardiologist and then a pulmonary guy were major hurdles in the battle to get clearance for surgery. The doctors want to be liberal about allowing it, and at the same time one of them wants to stubbornly hold to a moment in history's records, just as stubbornly as I want to deny it.

Somewhere there is a middle ground, and I'm tired of being jerked around by both sides. Eventually the decisions will have to come from my neurosurgeon who put all this fast-track path in motion to begin with.

As my wife recommended, I have to try and put these skirmishes into individual boxes (the lids rattle with the zeal of authority trying to prevail). And when they are in those boxes, I return my focus to the main goal, which is to have the back operation.  I never expected it to be such an entangled and often politely contentious path to travel.

Health Workers and a Yellow Mask

I'm about halfway through the surgery clearance hoops.

You could see the care being shown as soon as you opened the car door. Hospital workers in scrubs , their faces hidden in thick masks, asked why you were there and then were happy to direct you. Watching only their eyes, we hear them explain in a nice way about who can go in and who can't.  My wife wanted to accompany me but couldn't. We expected that.

Next to us was a small mountain of donated takeout food in stacked trays, cheerfully picked up by  hospital workers as they arrived to work.

I spent a hectic hour inside the building being shuttled back and forth in a wheel chair between tests. At the last appointment, a guy gave me a yellow disposable face mask to replace the blue bandana I had not-so-artfully safety-pinned and wrapped around my head. I looked at the mask like it was a million-dollar item, rare and precisely rippled.  (We since have bought some cloth ones.)

Leaving, I kept my new yellow mask on and sat on a bench outside, enjoying the Florida breeze. I idly wondered if the color of my mask signaled "done for the day." I relaxed and waited for my wife to drive back and pick me up.

The hospital had been eerily quiet, compared to normal days. The wait areas were sparsely populated. Even the blood lab, which is normally overflowing with people, was empty. I was one of two people giving samples. I don't know what to assume from this, other than people are locked down at home and not going anywhere, not even to doctor appointments.

The business of medicine goes on, knowing no time nor place, caring for people as they need it. Health workers are getting accolades these days for all the heroics that they do. Just seeing some of that firsthand two days ago (and I'll see many more before the month ends)  makes me further appreciate why.

Plans are Underway (nervous fanfare)

The thirty minutes with the neurosurgeon via FaceTime today went smoother than I expected. He seems a caring and highly respectable guy. After discussing what the surgery does and doesn't do, I asked to sign up. To my surprise, he  is actively taking up my cause.

The neurosurgeon has already put his staff into motion coordinating the pre-op tests, hoping to justify surgery and squeeze it all in during these chaotic days of COVID19. My case is judged as potentially getting worse and further threatening my ability to do normal activities. Or something like that. So I'm hopefully in...as long as I pass the tests.

I have at least six appointments showing up on my schedule, all off the pre-op variety. Some are office and lab exams/tests/imaging (3 Wednesday), some FaceTime, one is for the COVID testing drive-thru.

Due to the virus restrictions, no accompanying adults are allowed inside the building. Doing this solo is a chilly prospect.

My neurosurgeon is pencilled in at the end of the month. This is an in-person meeting, and then the following morning at five-thirty, if all goes without a hitch, there will be a 90-minute surgery. Who knows?  By June, I might be back to normal. A guy can hope.

Decision Day (maybe) Approaches

The Options:  The outcomes hinge on whether or not my surgery is allowed, in this COVID19 Virus time of essential vs. non-essential care. The consultation call in four days with a neurosurgeon will decide that one way or the other. In some sense, I feel like I am going into an interview. That if I am pitifully lame enough and ingratiating, I will have surgery. If I am not of the proper demeanor or criteria, I will go to the back of the line. Simplistic exaggeration? No, it's how I write it.

1.  Have the surgery.  Unless it involves fusion, in which case I will decline.

2.  Wait until Mother Nature absorbs the damaged disk, and the pinched nerve pain dissipates. This could take weeks, a year, or never happen.

3.  Get yet another neurosurgeon's opinion. This is likely if surgery is delayed by COVID19 situation.

4.  Make no decision at all.

Hours and God

Time takes on an odd quality this weekend. At home, it flies and sometimes it stalls, and when I go out and view my City, time seems to have stopped.

The churches are empty and the synagogues too.  The bars are closed, even Octopus' Garden.

Ok, enough ambience talk.

Last night, when sleeping in my normal right-side position, the sciatica or whatever the hell it is set my hips on fire. I was cramping and cursing and woke everyone up. It was the most pain I'd ever felt.

God cares for us and is merciful, yes indeed.