Now that this story has a happy ending, I need to tell it.
About five years ago I did something to my back. It’s a long story involving a family with bad backs, hot yoga and overzealous landscaping on my part. But since that time, I’ve endured a slow buildup of pain that started in my lower back, radiating down my left leg and up between my shoulder blades. I did yoga, pilates, acupuncture, Rolfing (the whole shebang), Chinese herbs, chiropractic adjustments, vitamin supplements, you name it. The pilates kind of helped as it strengthened my core and propped everything up for a while. But for the past 5 years, I’ve been hurting anywhere between a 2 and a 9, 24-7.
In 2005 when I realized that the problem wasn’t going away, but getting worse, I went to an orthopedic surgeon recommended to me by another doctor. He said that I didn’t really have much of a problem. He sent me to physical therapy where I was treated by one therapist who had a cross-eye and showed up at work in a retro pink organza ball gown. Apparently, she was soon fired and I then was treated by a woman who seemed always on the edge of a raging outburst and who’s hands sort of operated like claws. How she was a physical therapist was a baffling mystery. Poke, poke, prod, prod. Awful.
I stopped going.
Anyway, like a dolt, when things flared up again in February, I went back to the aforementioned doc. I’d done a lot of calling around but none of the surgeons recommended to me were on my insurance. He injected cortisone into my “bad” disc at S1-L5 twice to no avail and sent me again to physical therapy which was a little better but nowhere near enough to deal with my real problem: an almost completely degenerated disc at S1-L5.
In late July, a week after my last cortisone shot, I went for a checkup and told the doc the cortisone hadn’t done anything. He looked very solemn and sat down. “This is the kind of situation that is very frustrating,” he said. “There isn’t really anything I can do for you except send you to our Pain Management specialists (i.e. Dr. Druggy McDruggerton? Nein, danke). “The operation available is spinal fusion, but I can’t guarantee that would even help.”
His scariest statement: “This is the kind of situation where patients look at me and say ‘You’re a big piece of crap.’”
“Mad Men” moment: “The one thing I don’t want you to think is that you are hysterical or making up this pain.”
That’s when I realized I needed to forget about my insurance company and just go to the best doctor possible for a second opinion. And what happened after that is now like a blur.
At a poker game in early August I got orthopedic surgeon John Regan’s name. His fixed our friend Sam’s herniated disc and after checking his website I could see he was pretty much the bomb and of course, he was out of network on my insurance. Either of the surgeries available to help my problem — spinal fusion or artificial disc surgery — would cost many thousands of dollars out of pocket.
To be continued
